The Hotel End

May I thank you  and your colleagues for there contribution to an unforgetable day yesterday.

We left Sixfields at 8am arriving at Plainmoor after 2pm. The traffic jams were not the clubs fault of course unless the team coach driver had caught the inertia bug which ran through the team. The result has a much anticipated pint of Cornish Gold and fish and chips were replaced by a bottle of coke and a bacon bap.

By half time I wished I had settled for 2 pints and fish and chips. Obviously your statement on Thursday about not putting the ball on Bransons head was a red herring designed to fool any Torquay spy who might have been at the trust meeting, since our players managed to hit the target regularly from 40-50 yards but not managing to hit our own players from 5.

5 minutes into the second half I wondered whether to join the players on the pitch as they seemed to enjoying a spot of sunbathing and being completely unaware of anything going on around them.

At the final whistle it was back on the coach thankfully we thought
only to find all the drinks had been consumed on the outward journey and it was 9pm before we got any sort of stop falling foul of driver regulations.

We eventually arrived at Sixfields after the team bus so I assume that somewhere along the line the players had shown some urgency. Unfortunately none were around so that I could thank them for their contribution to my day.

down after one game, we're going down after one game.

I wanna go home,
I wanna go hoooooooooome,
This is the worst trip,
I've ever been on!

 ;D

I've just about had it with your negativity Fred.

You are the one who gets depressed over the smallest of things, espescially when you go for a piss ;D

I know the team coach driver, hes a good friend of mine, so watch what you say.

And if he did have something it would have spread to everyone, i was stood with Thornton and him yesterday, he said it came on suddenly friday night and couldnt stop being sick.

You might be able to read what the words say but you don't understand them much do you

Dear Football League,
Thank you for picking our first game as away in the far reaches of SW England.
Had we have been nearer I may have travelled to the game, but given the proximity to my hols I really couldn't be arsed...so I thankyou your random computer for saving me a wasted day watching the incorrectly pick team get hammered 3-0.

I now look fwd to the rest of the season, safe in the knowldege that my beloved NTFC have got their worst performance of the season out of the way on day 1 and every game from here on in, will be a delightful blend of fast flowing attacking footy culminating in a magnificent May afternoon at Wembley when we beat Oxford Utd 5-4 AET in the play off final!!

Once again...I thank you ;D

You seem to be confusing me with Graham, young man.   ;)

Christ, why wouldn't Tim Oglethorpe just leave him alone in that interview? !! The guy was hurting, you could clearly tell he was fuming...didn't want to say anything that would get him in trouble. This job, and our club mean so much to the bloke. Never could we say that about a manager before.

Week from hell, lets hope that next week is better and we get some luck versus Southend and bring in some players.

Agreed. Whilst I've had occasion to question some of Sammo's tactics and signings, I would never, ever question the man's integrity, committment and passion for the cause.

He's endured an awful week and he needs our support. We've got four points from five games, which on the face of it is not great but let's remember that we've been given a tough start fixture-wise - out of the teams we've played so far, the only we one we beat last season was Accrington. At least we're above Bradford and Gillingham!

Agree totally - we need to support Sammo. Cardoza on the other hand.

I thought Sammo was totally at fault with his pre-match comments before Hartlepool, was it any surprise whatsoever that the players played exactly how he said they might?

I also think the public slating of Thornton is totally out of order, that sort of thing should be kept behind closed doors.

He also said we're not after a centre-back anymore, god knows what was supposed to happen today had Beckwith or Holt been injured.

I like Sammo, he's Cobblers through and through but he needs to cut out these mistakes, he's making a rod for his own back!

It's all going to end in tears, we all know it. 

Yeah I agree with Marvo regarding Sammo's comments about Thornton, seems unfair to single him out. If he's not applying himself fully, Sammo should deal with it like he seems to have done with Davis a few weeks ago. A bit of petulance, dealt with internally and Davis has worked his way back into the first team. No need for public shaming of a player in my opinion.

This is his first full season as manager though and he's going to make mistakes. It's been a poor start, and I'm sure if we had money available to get both a forward and a defender in, we would, but facts are that our budget is clearly very tight even with this added bit of cash from the cup game. Personally, I'm glad we're getting a striker in as a priority, though I can see Marvo's arguments for favouring getting a defender in.

Still, not going to be too harsh on Sammo, I've been disappointed with this start to the season and we've been absolutely outclassed twice already which is a real shame but it's too early to be getting on his back now. We need a win. Then hopefully we can kick on forward, fingers crossed.

I think he was just trying to manage expectations regarding what I for one regard as a completely meaningless game.  I think a lot of people's reaction to the Hartlepool game was way OTT as far as I'm concerned.

I agree with you to some extent regarding Thornton: that's not going to do his morale any good. Having said that, Sammo wears his heart on his sleeve and if he thinks Thornton could have made the difference and preserved our lead I don't blame him for being angry.

 

I agree re not dissing a player in public, but equally those who think Thornton is our saviour should look at his performance against Wycombe, when he went into hiding in the second half. 

What was actually said. Comments not up on ntfc mobile website yet

i can't directly quote from memory but he basically said Thornton's performance was poor on tuesday so he was dropped, the interviewer (rightly) asked whether it was fair to single out Thornton when there were so many bad performances on tuesday, Sammo replied that he wasnt impressed at all with Thornton on tuesday and wasn't impressed with his efforts today either. He said he's not applying himself enough and will have to work to get back in the side.

after re hearing it on the bbc page, it sounded to me like he wasnt impressed with what Thornton was doing at the moment he was given the interview along with the hartlepool game,,,,probably just messing around and not doing a proper warm down? Just guessing.

Seems a bit harsh to criticise and single out one player like that, but Thornton is one of the better players at the club, and more is expected of him than the likes of Slowe. Besides, Sammo can't drop all of them.

Maybe CD is waiting for a big payday against Liverpool before getting another striker in..

Sammo is our biggest asset in my humble opinion. He cares about the club like we do, has a refreshing honesty about him, makes the tough decisions (Bayo, Gilbert) and is very clear he wants the same commitment from his players if they are to feature in his team (Gutteridge after Rotherham, Davis after Torquay, Purcell's attitude in training, Thornton's recent laziness when not in possession of the ball)

He knows the players better than us so if he thinks Thornton needs a public bollocking to get the best out of him then so be it. In any walk of life you manage different people in different ways so some of the responses seem OTT, especially seeing as we have criticised previous managers for failing to publically acknowledge poor performances.

Having had the pleasure of talking to him on several occasions he has a very sharp football brain but in his first full season he will make a few mistakes and we have to accept that, as in the long term he will be a very good manager.

The players he is talking to at the moment are proven at this level (and above) and re-enforce the chairmen's £ commitment to this season - the issue we have is that is well known we are ambitious/have just landed a plum tie at Anfield/have an injury crisis which leaves us exposed to agents/players wanting silly money.

I hope he lands the players he wants and we get a few wins under our belt so that some of the criticism seen in other threads is nipped in the bud. Viva Sammo !

thanks for that, you've just cheered up my sunday saying that  ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

We're in no way shape or form ambitious!

Really? I think we are, the eagerness and enthusiasm to push the redevelopment issue with the council from both fans and the board shows that we are, it's just that under the current "only housing or nothing until 2026" stance that the incumbent council is taking we don't have the means to take any really ambitious steps right at this moment. It's a long-term ambition we have but it's an ambition nonetheless.

There is nothing stopping development,if he was that ambitious hed have built the ground up by now.The surrounding land should be used/sold in the best interests of the town, be is Cobblers or not,it isnt his to develop

And how is he supposed to get the money to build the ground up, and get a better quality of players in? Cash from the redevelopment is vital to this club moving forward. You look at the size of the town and it warrants a successful football club, particularly if Saints bugger off to MK as they're threatening to. We got big crowds in the past (when we played P*sh in their first few seasons as a football league club we'd get nigh on 20,000 through the gates, and Northampton was a smaller place back then) and we just need a catalyst to get the crowds in again. While we're playing in a 7,500 capacity ground with Steve Guinan leading the front line and all hopes resting on the shoulders of an 18-year-old lad from Rothwell, we're always going to be a tinpot 4th division club.

He could have spent his reported £8.5m "investment" on day one, building up the ground. Certainly the West Stand project could have been completed and he'd have sat back for the last 5 years reaping the rewards from the executive boxes and conferencing suites.

Instead, he's £8.5m down the tubes, still with a leased ground, still with a mid-table fourth tier team and still with no hope of selling land which his not his own!

What part of this don't you understand?  Cardoza was given a lease on however many acres at Sixfields to develop a football ground, which he indicated he had the funds to do when he first came in.  It's not his land to build retail, houses, offices or anything else for that matter that was outside the terms of the original lease.  If he didn't have the money he shouldn't have taken it on, though he did manage to piss well in excess of £7m up the wall paying £3000 a week wages. 

SNAP!!

I'm not going to get drawn into the debate about what should / shouldn't have been done in previous years as I think that others (from memory Drilling, Son Of Geoff, Vintage, Bingers) do an excellent job of representing a balanced view of the world.

As ever when results are disappointing there is an upturn in criticising the club, DC and now it appears Sammo is also fair game, which in my opinion is bang out of order.

I know the transfer stuff is frustrating but it is more complicated than most appreciate. If we agree a wage for a player and then (once Purcell's injury news broke) they upped their demands by 25% then of course it is going to lead to delays whilst we re-negotiate or find an alternate (in addition to now also needing to find a replacement for Purcell)

The point of this topic was that through all of this Sammo comes across as passionate, driven, respected and not prepared for players (including transfer targets) to take the piss. This is what I want the manger of my club to demonstrate so Viva Sammo !

Really?  If the old forum posts could be viewed, I think you'd see a long history of that by those that refuse to kow-tow to the official line.


I haven't been overly critical of Sampson as yet, though I do question some of his contract awards this year and the signing of Slowe. The fact that the jury's still out on his tactical nous and his signings is being voiced by many others on here.  But "respect" must also now be questioned given public trashing of Thornton and the spat with Davis already this season.  I'm more than happy for Sampson to be judged at the end of this season.  But that shouldn't exempt him from criticism.  On his other qualities, I agree.

As for the comment about delays in transfers, we were told the Bayo affair was all about knowing early if he was committed or not, so that his substantial (so we were told) wages could be invested elsewhere.  Now we haven't really replaced him (certainly not in monetary terms) and yet before the Liverpool draw we were reading publicly that there was no more money!

Cheers Insider - being new-ish to this it gives me a better sense of where you are coming from.

I know what you mean about the messages being difficult to follow. It's a pity the club can't give us full transparency but some things will never be for public consumption which means there will always be plenty to be (mis) interporated and interegated on slow Sunday afternoons like this !

I personally do not condemn DC for choosing to spend big money on the likes of Low and Kirk as we actually had a good team at that time, but the problem was that unlike Notts County last season, we failed to get out of the League several times before finally doing so, but by then we had made losses in those years and couldn't spend any more money. If Calderwood or even Wilkinson had got us promoted at the first time of asking then it is likely that Cardoza would've made more money available. Unfortunately, the players that we did pay substantial amounts for all left under the Bosman ruling, something that the club could do little about. Cardoza has taken the risks, and we are all burdened with the consequences. What needs to happen now is for Sammo to get the full length of his 3 year contract to build the team the way he wants, as at the moment he is stuck with a lot of the players that were brought in at the end of the Gray era. At the moment he has brought in 8 of his own players, but there are still 14 other players that Sammo may or may not want. A prime example is Guinan, the man that Sampson has tried to offload for the entire summer, and at the moment he top of the list on supporter's complaints. Of course this is the fault of previous management, who stupidly gave Guinan a 2 year contract at the age of 35.
This season our squad is still mainly SG signings, and I don't think that Sammo can be judged properly until next season.

John Still had 6 years, and some very average conference finishes, but stability was rewarded.

I think your memory must be crap Mr Taka.  Drilling isn't balanced, he gets very cross sometimes and says rude words (never met the bloke, but he admits to it on here) and I'm just here for the humour.  Vintage is a bit old and as for Son Of Geoff, ignore him and listen to his Dad.

One thing to correct, DC hasn't still got a mid-table league 2 club. We were in mid-table in league 1 when he arrived.

Cheers Bingers, appreciate the insight from a more experienced poster (unless you are grooming me, in which case I am a bit scared)  ;D

Do you need grooming?  That auntie certainly needs grooming.  I don't reckon his hair has ever seen a hairbrush, let alone been stroked by one.

No, with a name like Tiki-Taka, I magine you are a buddhist monk and are as bald as a coot, just like the long-lamented Father Hiroshima Twinkie, God bless him on his travels.

Name them. And don't include those to whom he gave new contracts in the summer.  Hinton, Beckwith, Gilligan and Guinan are the ones I can identify.

Whoops, mate just said Gilli signed a new contract this summer.

Bingers, your imagination is far better than the humble truth !

I also recognise a trap when I see one and therefore will avoid your subliminal request for me to send you a picture of my shiny head !

I'm off to research whether this site has a "help button" like other popular social networking sites just incase you persist with your advances.

I'm getting fed up of all this negativity, why only the other day Tony Clarke told us on here that the club broke even last year. He and us should be very proud of that achievement.

What he said was "the club broke, even last year..." !

Oh s***, I didn't have my reading glasses on.

Sammo is a legend , even my mum commented about how it was nice to hear a football manager who is straight talking and dosnt take s*** from  ANY of his players

I've been a Sammo man from the very moment DC gave him the job, despite some of the doubters who sprang up on here to say how he was the wrong choice!
He knows the game, and knows what he wants out of the players, and there's a more than reasonable chance he'll be able to shape this lot into a decent unit in time for a tilt at promotion this season. And of course he'd be the first to also acknowledge the expertise of Crosby, who also knows how people tick. I really hope they both get the success they deserve in a time of extremely difficult financial restraint.

The only thing I will say about Sammo's style of management is his tactics and team set-ups. In his day great centre half at this level possibly at his best in Atkins team which played a simple 4-4-2 or 5-3-2. I just thing for this division and for players at this level that is the way to play, nice and simple no fancy formations. This season with mixed success we have played 4-2-3-1 4-5-1 and 4-1-3-2. I'm not saying revert to Atkins style hoof ball, but lets not confuse players.

Time will tell if he was the right appointment. I'd be lying if I thought he was at the time. At the moment he looks like a man under pressure and so early in the season that doesn't bode well. You don't become a good manager overnight and Sammo's still in the very much at the start of his managerial career. He's been given a long term deal by the club and i'm sure the fans will back him. Hopefully during that time he can improve and improve the team.

One good league win will wash away this pressure I am sure.

I had a good feeling about us beating Southend on Saturday....however with there now likely to be a big crowd i have lost that good feeling!

We never seem to beat Southend. A(nother) draw wouldn't be that bad.

I'm unable to go on Saturday due to work commitments so I'm predicting a home win too.  8)

Southend beat Torquay at the weekend so I think they'll come here with some confidence :-\

Ahem, I think you will find that Guinan was signed on a 2 year Contract, and Beckwith and Hinton were both re-signed due to an appearance clause in their contract, all of said players were signed by SG

Ok, perhaps I exxagerated. Discounting players who signed new deals in the summer, the senior players who were committed on at least a 2 year deal, before Sammo took over are:

Dunn, Rodgers, Gilligan, Guinan, Walker and McKay

Now, whilst most of these players are wanted here and are an important part of the team, I think that there are certainly better players around who Sammo could bring in. Dunn, McKay and to a lesser extent Gilly (Sorry Marvo) are certainly talented players who will hopefully be at the club for years to come. The likes of Paul Rodgers however, are only suited to this level, and in the increasingley unlikely event that we get promoted, Rodgers and Guinan will probably leave the club. Sammo is not going to offload the entire squad, but he will have certain players that he likes, and that he will want to bring to this club, as every other manager in football does.

You are still incorrect:

"Paul Rodgers has verbally agreed a new one-year contract which I'm really pleased with and when I offered him the contract he wanted to sign straight away, which was great," Sampson told the club's official website after Saturday's 3-1 win at Port Vale.   8th March, 2010

Northampton Town midfielder Ryan Gilligan has become the latest player to agree a new contract at Sixfields.
The 23-year-old is set to sign and joins Dean Beckwith, Craig Hinton and Paul Rogers, in agreeing a new deal.
"It's pleasing because 11 goals from midfield is very good going, so we are glad to have him tied down," boss Ian Sampson told BBC Radio Northampton.   26th March 2010

Rodgers and Gilligan were both new deals. Hinton and Beckwith were extensions based on appearances as you say.  But that means that if I count correctly, only the following were not Sammo decisions:

Beckwith, Dunn, Guinan, Hinton, McKay, Walker

So out of Sammo's squad of 22, well over two thirds are his signings.  Your original point is plain wrong.  And even you are questioning Rodgers' signing!

Im staggered that no body has really bothered with this today but here goes.

Sammo's substitution of Harris. What do people think? I thought it was shocking, a terrible terrible thing to do and will kill the player. He's been Sammo's self confessed centreback back up all season...now apparently he's 4th choice and was given 35 minutes to prove otherwise.

He had a shocker for 20 minutes. Then 15 minutes of being fairly steady. Then he was subbed. Im sorry but that is not the way to manage a football team.

Rant over!

I am gobsmacked by today. Poor Seb was one thing but Jacobs dropped in favour of an out of position wedders. bonkers.

Saving Jacobs for Wednesday no doubt, shop window blah blah blah.

Really? Is that what it's come to. f***in 'ell.

Wouldn't be a f***ing suprise would it, we sell anybody that has an ounce of talent.

wednesday has gone to everyone's head. i wish i was 12 again. you've all ruined it for me.

I think Sammos current problem is he doesn't know his best team or formation and he is also in love with Ryan Gilligan which is possibly making some of the other players jealous that also fancy some man love.

Been at work but managed to hear Sammo's pre-match interview, reminded me very much of the Hartlepool one and I had resigned myself to a defeat before the game had even kicked off. He said Shrewsbury were going to be a hard nut to crack, they had good players all over the pitch, a few of our youngsters were going to learn a few lessons, etc, etc. If the manager doesn't rate our chances, what hope have we got, no wonder the players play to the level he expects.

Funny you say that Marvo, i said the exact same thing to Wazzacobbler a little earlier, we may aswell have waved the white flags and not bothered sending a team to Shrewsbury.


http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/sport/football/cobblers/northampton_town_shrews_will_be_tough_to_tame_says_sampson_1_1167071

More than anything, it seems bizarre that Wedderburn was dropped and then played out of position after being comfortably our best performer in the middle of the park beforehand. I don't consider myself a master tactician, but even I would suggest that he's not a wide player.

I don't think it was the right game to start Harris in anyway, but it seemed strange that he didn't wait to half-time when we were going through a calmer period.

Was Sammo right?

Well he certainly wasn't right in starting the poor lad....

It seems we are asking the same questions each week, all about Sammo's team selection, tactics and substitutions. I love the fella to bits but how many more times is he going to make these mistakes without serious questions being asked of him.

I had high hopes for yesterday and when i saw the teamsheet i thought we would see Wedders Osman and Thornton in the middle with Mckay and Gilly out wide. Instead he decided to employ some sort of diamond formation which culminated in Wedderburn playing as a left midfielder, total madness against a team top of the table.

The fact we have exctly the same amount of points this season from the same time last year is quite telling. The difference is this year the side isn't any better and without Bayo has regressed. Can anybody see us going on a similar type of run this year as last?

Bringing Gilligan back to the centre is the biggest mystery to me, I thought Osman and Wedderburn were looking pretty solid with no reason to make a change. Suddenly Gilligan is injured, decides to play through it and Sampson seems obliged to play him. A fully fit Gilligan wasnt worth a place in the middle but an injured, not match fit, out of form Gilligan is?

It seems that Sammo has a fondness for playing Gilli like Atko had for Dean Peer!

Or Stuart Gray's fondness of Leon Constantine?

I think that was more vanity in the sense that he was hoping to prove he had not dropped a massive ball.  Thinking about it was Atko Peer's brother in law?

i think samo was totally out of order doing that to seb harris the poor lad and i was at the game and yes he had a mad 10 min then who did not and harris did start to get into the game and put some good blocks in he even block the shot that lead to the first goal . if i was samo i would not take that game of harris  into  account of what the lad can bring to a team like Northampton.  i guess the moment maybe have got to him a bit ,i do hope the fans get behind harris and support him he was never the worse player on the pitch ( escape goat maybe ) for an all round bad display

come on the cobs

His handling of Harris is one thing, but the public slagging of Thornton in the pages of the Chron is bang out of order.  If he's questioning Thornton's commitment, he should be doing that behind closed doors.  But then perhaps he's paving the way for the ongoing selection of Gilligan and his commitment over the mercurial talent that is Thornton.   ::)

 Escape goat    ;D  fantastic, hes just a kid.

I still think Harris is more suited to being a striker.

My personal view on Sammo is starting to change somewhat. He came in last year, when things were going s***e, managed to change our fourtunes completly and nearly pulled off a miracle in getting us to the play offs. But this season has been nothing short of bog-standard at best. If it had not been for us getting a miracle at Reading, I think Sammo may have found himself under a bit moee pressure, but instead the distraction of the Liverpool game, which people have been talking about for weeks appears to have clouded over some serious issues.

I find myself disagreeing with his team selection every single week. I'm not a football manager, only a fan, but I can never say I have disagreed with a team so many times and so constantly, even when we were doing s*** under previous managers I've thought, yeah thats proberly our best team. How on earth he is not playing a midfield 4/5 with Jacobs, Thornton, Osman (now injured) and Wedderburn, every game when all of these players are fit is beyond me.

Equally, in my opinion, Sammo had a poor transfer window. I understand there were budget cuts which limited him significantly and made his already difficult job much harder in terms of trying to build a squad. But we left ourselves woefully short of cover in central defence, as I do not beleive that Sammo would not have known to some sort of degree the extent of Hinton's injury, and lacking completely in any sort of strikeforce having let our best striker by a countrymile go, without replacing him, until recently with Mckenzie.

I still beleive we can turn this season around, just, but to do it, Sammo is going to need the players who can win games, such as Jacobs, Thornton and Davis on his side and his handling of the player so far seems to have been a bit wayward, but equally I do understand you can't just let players walk over you as a manager.

Terry Angus said on the radio that early on Holt put his hands on Harris' shoulders & gave him a pep talk. The opposition players & management would've seen this & would've been able to exploit the weakness so through those actions maybe Sammo had little choice than to replace Harris ???

Harris, while untested, looked very solid in the pre-season in the centre of defence, so I can see why we focussed on getting the Bayo replacement everyone and their dog was clamouring for, as he appeared to be back-up in an injury crisis. Yesterday he did not seem mentally prepared for the game, and he obviously needs working on. Taking him off has probably hurt him a bit, but he'll just have to take it for the team and learn from it. I've also thought that Osman has been as often poor as he is decent, though I wasn't sure about dropping Wedderburn last week.

But as has been said, picking the team is more than just writing down the best names on paper. You have to consider a lot of behind-door issues. Football players are people with lives as opposed to abstract illusions that suddenly arrive on the pitch come the start of a football match, and its hard to really judge the correctness of a team selection without the full knowledge of everything that is going on behind the scenes, other than by results, which have been average so far. With the budget we were given (Was it something along the lines of a squad of about 18 if we have kept Bayo's wages), Sammo has done what he can. I think he hasn't helped himself too much with that rediculous streak we went on last year, as everyones expectations of a manager who has only had one year in charge seem to be far too high.

We played the team who are top of the league away from home. Shrewsbury have spent a lot of money these last years to try and get up, and this is finally paying off (though who knows what they'll do when they got to league 1 again. Probably the same as us and hundreds of other lower league teams and f*** around for a bit and then come back down with a larger debt). Last year we lost 3-0 to them. Last year, we got hammered by Notts County 5-1, who also had spent more money that they should realistically have, and we lost at home to Barnet when they went top of the league. We have average attendances for this league, and we shouldn't be expecting to be walking it because we've spent more time in league 1 than league 2. We're still mid-table, and Sammo will be fine aslong as we don't end up too periously close to bottom of the table come January. If he doesn't make the play-offs at the end of the year though, I'll imagine he'll be gone, so he has his target to aim for and a large majority of the year to get there.

You missed the holty goal as well then  ;D I think that the frustrating thing is, is that, injuries aside, we never seem to play the same XI two games running. Some of the changes are mystifying. Bringing gilly back last week at the expense of Wedders for example. The reasoning for this was that Gilly had scored 11 goals last season and he would give us attacking options. Yet in reality Gilly was played so deep he had a seat in the North stand. Why was Jacobs dropped for an out of position Wedders yesterday. The Davis / jacobs combination on the left has been proved to work.

I appreciate we have been hit by an injury crisis but that should have accounted for just one change yesterday. The common theme amongst all the top clubs in our division is that the same players are playing week in week out.

We might as well say goodbye now then because the play-offs in my opinion are beyond this team (and manager). Last season we went on an incredible run that left us just short of the play-offs. It has been said time and time again that we had too much to make up after a bad start. Well my friend, this start is just as bad and the odds of us replicating that run from last season have to be long to say the least.

We're up against simliar sized clubs with similar sized crowds and similar sized budgets. The ONLY real difference for any of the teams in this division is the ability of the manager to put together a squad, select the right line-up and tactics and instill a belief and desire in his players. Sammo is failing on all fronts!

I actually think it was correct for Sammo to take off Harris before half-time .......... he was having a nightmare and was being sorely exposed and we could not afford to go a second goal down. I felt sorry for Harris as he looked a forlorn figure sitting on his own on the bench at half-time, but it was just not working.
Re the original team selection, I thought Sammo got it massively wrong however. This perseverance with Gilligan could be the downfall of him. He should have started with Osman and Wedderburn in the middle, and whilst Jacobs has been disappointing in his last couple of games I would have persevered with him on the left.

i wasn't sure slatting Thornton publicly was the right thing to do, but to be fair he's got a reaction from as Thornton came on
and changed the game against Southend and scored yesterday.

As for Harris, i wasn't at the game but could this have waited until half time?  Although they were both playing s*** i felt for Rodgers and Hinton when they were subbed just before half time last year at Burton.

I must say i agree with all this. Sammo has made some pretty strange decisions lately. Yesterday we had a converted striker playing alongside a converted left midfileder at centre half. I also do not agree with the way Sammo seems so dismissive of the Liverpool game, not sure this is inexperience but I reckon Sammo should give it the big one. "Nothing to lose, they're the ones under pressure, give a right good go" Instead our (boring?) manager bleats something about Bradford being more important. We all know that is probabably true, but come on Sammo lighten up we are likely not to win at Anfield but lets give it a good go please.

I'm not so sure Bradford is so important now, any points gained will probably mean that we finish 15th this season instead of 16th.

Weren't we two points off the play-offs before the start? We lost in what was probably going to be the hardest fixture in the calender this year. We shouldn't be ruling ourselves out at this stage - it's a s*** league and pretty much anything can happen.

I am looking at the table today ........ and we are only two points off the bottom of the table.

It's not about how many points we are behind, or in front for that matter, it's about how good we are and at the moment it is obvious that we are nowhere near good enough. What makes matters worse, I seriously doubt our manager has the nous to change things, at least not for the better! I've seen NOTHING this season that suggests we can get promoted this term.

Far too early and Shrewsbury played well and looked a very good side, in my opinion the true test will be Home to Hereford - if we don't get three points it will be then I will join the doom and gloom bandwagon

Better to sub early than concede more goals

Bless Mr C - he scored for York again yesterday

We only conceeded 1 goal with Harris on the pitch.

We lost 3-1.

Why wait that long? We are s***

I know but at the time of the sub we were 1-0 down so the decision to sub would have taken the fact - sub or concede more goals - no-one had the benefit of this hindsight at that point

I know, i was just being a wanker  ;D

I will let you off then  ;)

I think we've reached the point where serious questions have to be asked about Sammo's ability to take us forward.

He was handed an extremely tough group of opening fixtures and he's had some nasty injuries to contend with, but these factors, whilst mitigating, should not obscure the fact that he has made some truly shocking decisions.  

He blew the striker budget on Tadgh Purcell only to decide that transfer-listed geriatric, Steve Guinan, was a better option up front. He has constantly tinkered with the team from the start, never giving the impression that he knows our best 11. He's made questionable man-management decisions concerning Thornton and Harris. Now he's lavishing praise on a half-fit Ryan Gilligan for playing through the pain barrier, as if the guy is the indispensible fulcrum of our side, when everybody else would tell you he's way down the midfield pecking order behind Thornton, Osman, Wedderburn and Jacobs, all of whom, with the exception of Osman, have the virtue of being fully bloody fit. How must Wedderburn feel when a 60-70% fit Gilligan is preferred to him in centre midfield? I don't care if he's only 18, the lad should be starting in his proper positon.

I'm starting to question again, as I did during the early days of his reign, whether Sammo has the tactical nous, the transfer acumen and the man management skills to be a succesful manager. There's no doubting his integrity and his passion, and I'd dearly love him to succeed; he just needs to be a little more circumspect, a little less heart-on-sleeve and to use his brain a bit more.  When the sideshow of the Liverpool game is out the way and we've played a few of our easier fixtures, we should have a clearer idea of how things stand.

In 5 games time we'll have completed a quarter of our league campaign, which in my view is a fair time to make a judgement.

The panic button should be being pressed if we start falling away and are in danger of relegation. The severe lack of a big striker and a decent centre back will be the thorn in
Sammo's tactics until he sorts these positions out - and from what I can see, the club have pretty much exhausted all avenues on this front and are getting nowhere fast.

For a bit of perspective, we lost our second league game of the season, away from home, to a better team. Torquay away on the opening day was also similar. We have lost 2 from 7 games so far 2010/011, having faced 3 decent sides on our travels. Last season we lost 1 in 3 matches, including 10 away from home.

Last season's good run of form came because the club managed to blood a good confident side week in week out. That confidence is lacking partly because Sammo is struggling to find that first 11, and the right tactics to fit the players. I'd wait until end of October - another 7 games (including 4 home games) before seeing if changes have paid off.

Personally, I'm preferring the fact we are getting the ball down, passing it about a la Shrewsbury instead of lumping it around. - imagine the level of negativity on the board is we were in this position and we were incapable of playing a pass to feet (cue the ridiculous comments...)  ;D

By which I suppose you mean Cardoza's management of the finances.

Perhaps I'm naiive, but I still think that the central issue is the management of the team. I still believe that a decent manager with tactical nous, transfer acumen and the ability to improve players would get us promoted out of this division, even with the slender resources currently at our disposal. I'm getting increasingly concerned that Sammo is not the man to do this.  

 

When you consider that our playing budget was reduced by 25% from last year's budget (which I seem to recall DC saying in his Q&A was around the £1.2m mark?), and then you take out the wages of Purcell (who will contribute nothing on the field of play this season) and the transfer-listed duo (who were brought in on League One wages by Gray and are assumably on the same terms as last season), the rest of the playing budget cannot be more than about £800k. That is not one of the higher budgets in the division and in fact, puts us at about where we look likely to finish this season, lower mid-table. The likes of Macclesfield and Barnet aren't operating on much less than £800k. I'm not really sure what some of you expect Sammo to do.

Well stop picking an unfit Gilligan (and playing him out of position) might help.



Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

You judge a manager not by the circumstances in which he finds himself but by the decisions he makes in response. Sammo has made poor decisions in areas in which I would expect a good manager to do better, no matter what the circumstances: team selection, tactics and man-management. As Marvo says, can anyone really defend the continued selection of Gilligan at the moment?

Taking Harris off was a terrible piece of (mis-)management. He didn't have a great start to the game, but he was starting to settle, and what can it do to anyone's coinfidence to be taken off after half an hour?!

But who picked him to start? This wasn't some unknown loan player who performed less well than we'd hoped - it was Seb Harris, doing exactly what we might have expexcted.

And, all the psychology aside, it was a poor football decision as it turned out. JJ got out-jumped and out-muscled for their second, which I don't think would have happened to Harris, and he stood off the forward and let him shoot for their third - so you could even argue that the decision cost us the game.

And who's the manager who's reached this point of having three midfielders and an out of position attacking right back as his defence, injuries and bad luck aside - Harris shouldn't be made a scapegoat for that.

And what does it say of the manager's relationship with the captain - as the other centre back, did Holt say don't pick him, or did he say take him off...or do the manager and the captain disagree?

Shrewsbury are a very good team - including Harrald who was available to be bought for a long time this summer - big, effective centre forward anyone?! Nah, why would we need one of those. So, it's no surprise we lost, even if we do end up winning more than we lost this season. I also think that's about the last we'll see of Harris and he'll just fade away out of the game because he's probably just not good enough (but who signed him?)....but it was still a very poor bit of management.

My issues have very little to do with the squad, becuase I understand and accept that he has been operating with at least one hand tied behind his back. Infact, the signings of Hall, Johnson and Purcell all looked decent and Purcell's injury is just one of those things. My problem is the decisions that Sampson has made with that squad in terms of selection, tatics and man-management. I do not hate Gilligan, infact I think he is a decent squad player, but how he starts in central midfield infront of either Osmand or Wedderburn, who I think looks a very decent player is beyond me, and how he starts out wide ahead of Thornton or Jacobs is equally bemusing. We have seen that an off form Jacobs causes more problems than most other palyers in our squad.

And I still havent understood why Guinan started the first 5 games of this season, despite looking really s***e last year, and equally s***e in competitive games this year.

I have not given up hope on Sammo doing a good job for this team and our club, far from it, but his some of his decisions have been questionable at best.

Honestly don't think I could ever criticize Sammo, or even Osman after this. They're all heroes. 

The thing is, although a lot of supporters said this game didn't matter, of course it did for long after the result against Bradford on Saturday, whatever it is, is long forgotten, some of you youngsters will still be boring the pants over the new generations about this night. I can see Karl getting stick for once again mentioning last night some 30 years down the line.  :)

For a game that is 'more important' on Saturday, can you see the squad aquaplaning across sixfields after a 95th minute winner? ;D 

Do you know Tel I was only thinking this morning what a Cobblers Legend he is.  On top of that he does genuinely care, he lives and breathes it with us, and to top it all he is a thoroughly decent bloke too. 

I am so pleased and proud for him.

Sammos celebrations were awesome!

i'm just gutted they aren't the sky game this weekend because i'd love to be in a pub full of the f***ers right now

Sammo said, in his post match interview that, 'getting a striker is on the backburner'.
When Purcell was fit he said the priority was 'getting a striker in', well McKenzie has surely only replaced Purcell. Am I misreading the situation?
DC said this week 'we aim to bring in 1 or 2 players', then surely there is no position a higher priority if we aim to get promotion!
We have needed another striker in the squad for over a month and having the contacts and obtaining players is part of Sammos job.
Good luck.

They just beat Liverpool.

Go away.

You have Hall, McKenzie and Beckwith not starting at present, all three you would have been expecting to command a place in the starting line-up but who do you drop to accomodate them?

We've lost one league game in the last seven and have beaten Brighton, Reading and Liverpool in the cup, of course signing any more players is now on the backburner, we're not Manchester United!

When Purcell was fit we were playing with 2 strikers up front. We don't need more than Billy, Leon and Stevie G when you also have Herbert who, although is finding his feet rather well on the wing, can be pushed up front if needed. 4 strikers in a squad is enough for now. It's if another long term injury happens we will need a new one. In my opinion, our strikeforce is in form and I'm happy with that right now

We need 4 new strikers, 3 new midfielders and 7 new defenders sort it out Sammo >:(

We still wont have any chance at all at Ipswich though.

Of course we'll have a chance. A very, very slim chance. Not a "good chance" as some of you are suggesting. The lads will put in a performance to be proud of, of that I'm sure, but if Ipswich play to their full potential it shouldn't matter how well we play, they should have enough about them to get the job done.

Once the (understandable) hysteria around Wednesday dies down you may look back and realise how ridiculous it is to start talking about how we've got a "good chance" up there. Lightning can't keep striking again and again and again; cup games are one-offs, anything can happen on the night and form often goes out the window- but that works both ways. Anfield will have no bearing on the Ipswich game. Wednesday was our night and nights like that come round once in a blue moon. That's why they're so special.

here we go again ;D

Grove-and your point is?

Make your mind up?

you're so masterful tel...ipswich, IPSWICH, IPSWICH

I'm so bloody happy it sickens me  ;D

The point I was trying to make (however poorly) was that I agree with DC keeping to a strick budget and only spending extra funds to the agreed budget, ie the Liverpool windfall. I believe the priority is a striker with the available funds because Guinan and Herbert will not complement McKenzie and McKay.

I can see Herberts position being a right winger by the end of the season

Yep, Herbert is starting to look really good, I just wonder if he can do it from the off?

Sammo also said he's "got a few phone calls in". I think the position is that we're still looking if someone good becomes available, but there's no rush or panic.

Does anyone think the Cobblers are starting games with their strongest team ?

I certainly don't

Sampson thinks were moving in the right direction, for that statement alone he should f*** off.

A few weeks a go sammo was being hailed as a hero

The only manager to win at Anfield this season and be sacked ?

Get Akto back fast...he'll get us promoted from this s*** div..Then when we get in the Championship get Samp back

After the bradford game and to an extent the chesterfield game everyone was saying how we were playing the best football in years and how sammo was going to lead us up the table. Two games later, albeit poor results, suddenly people are calling for his head saying were doomed. Short memories. We may not go up this year, we probably won't, but give the man a chance. He's building a young squad which yeah, is missing a few players, such as a Target man but that is what building a squad is about, and as they get more and more experience they are only going to get better.

Speak for yourself.  Sammo is getting it wrong on so many fronts.  Why did he opt for a central defensive three plus two wing backs today when we've played all season with a back four? Why change it and bring Beckwith back in what may prove to be a must win match instead of reinstating him gently?  Why does he persist in the Gilligan-Osman defensive midfield combo that has consistently failed to deliver?  And that with a back five?  Why does he continue to publicly slag off players in post match and "stocking filler" midweek interviews?  Why is he not investing in the young squad you refer to instead of using our club to blood someone else's youngsters?  Jacobs and Konstantinou have at least as much potential as Parker.  Why did he offer much needed contracts to Slowe and Harris?  And why oh why has he left one of the best midfield prospects I've seen in a long time in Nigel Wedderburn to fester on the bench?  We have the talent if only he throws caution to the wind as he did at Reading.  Mr Tinker Man has struck again and ultimately will be the architect of his own downfall.   We cannot real afford another failure, so go on man, be brave and at least go down fighting.

This is a very young, inexperienced but talented side we've got, give these players a season or two to iron out their inconsistencies and get a little more experience and we'll be laughing, especially if that huge gaping Bayo-size hole gets filled sooner rather than later.

The players aren't the only inexperienced ones. Sammo may make a mistake tactically here and there, because he's still learning, but there is a good manager in there somewhere. He was being lauded across the football league last season for the achievement of pulling us out of the relegation battle and into promotion contention in the space of about two and a half months. He hasn't turned into a bad manager overnight.

He and Crosby will get it right, I'm sure. They're not working with the biggest of budgets, especially when you consider a lot of cash is tied up in three of our highest earners, Hinton, Guinan and Purcell- two of whom Sammo wants out, and one of whom is on the treatment table until the spring. But despite those constraints they've pieced together one of the most technically gifted sides we've had in years. Some of the football we saw against Chesterfield and Bradford was a joy to watch, and we were just lacking someone to finish off the chances we were creating. I think we all know we're only one striker away from doing that, and I'm sure Sammo is focused on unearthing that striker. He found key players around November and December time last season that played a big part in our revival and we have to have faith in him and Crosby to do that again. Zola is still up for grabs.

Patience is key with the set-up we have at the minute. I genuinely don't believe we're in danger of going down. When this young side is high on confidence they can tear most teams in this division a new arsehole, and we will pick up enough points over 46 games that we won't be in danger. We may be in "danger" of a season, maybe two, in the League Two wilderness, but we may need to accept that, endure it and afford this team a bit of time to find its feet. If we can keep this side together and Cardoza doesn't resort to selling the Thorntons, Jacobses, Johnsons, Dunns and McKays, in a couple of years we'll have a team with the know-how, experience and bloody mindedness to match their undoubted raw ability.

Short-term fixes never bring long-term success and a promotion-winning side is built over a period of years, not months. Which is probably why Sammo and Crosby were handed 3 year contracts- this is a long-term project they're embarking on and they need us to have faith in them and support them, not start getting on their backs after a couple of poor results. They will get it right if we give them enough time. Patience is a virtue that will be rewarded. In this instance anyway. :)

How much time does someone who has only won 3 games in 20 deserve? If this was Gray still he would be hounded by now. If we lose on Saturday to Hereford then i think it could be over for Sammo. I really hope this doesn't happen because like everyone i want Sammo to be a success. But the pressure is definitely on him now.

He didn't play 3 centre backs.

We all know so little about Wedderburn it's beyond me why people rate him so highly. For f***'s sake, some people don't even know he's called Nathaniel..

Dan- like I said, short-term fixes never work. Who would we appoint in his place? Name an available manager you know would do better beyond reasonable doubt. Sammo and Crosby are trying to build something here, and they've knocked down the rubble that was left of Grey's regime over the summer and are rebuilding from the very bottom. We couldn't have continued down the road we were on; we were reliant on a continually injured 30-stone blob of a journeyman who wasn't going to be around for long anyway, and the side being built around him were a rabble of cloggers who were bullying their way to results. In the short term, fair enough, they were getting the points, but they would have been found out sooner or later, much like the Atkins team, and had we been promoted, we would have been murdered with that side in League One (as many of the more sensible posters on here pointed out during our good run last season).

Although 3 wins in 20 is not a pretty statistic to look at, the squad Sammo has assembled is good enough to avoid relegation this year and with a whole campaign's experience under their belts, they'll be better for it next year- and unlike the side we had last season they do have a big future ahead of them. The key with any developing young side is stability, and I hope our supporters and board allow them that by not calling for Sammo's head so prematurely.

A few weeks ago you were creaming your pants at the signing of Leon McKenzie.  Now you're saying the problem hasn't gone away.  I actually agree that the there is great potential in this inexperienced young squad, but my argument is why are we not playing them?  I would also contend that the best football we've played all season was at Reading when we fielded nearly all the youngsters.

And for Geoff's edification, Wedderburn has started in 7 games this season and we only lost one of them (at Shrewsbury - I don't count JPT as football!).  

Leon's body language has disappointed me quite a bit when I've seen him although by the sounds of it he impressed in his little cameo today, so the jury is very much still out on that one. Either way, we needed a striker before Tadhg's season was ended and we've only got one in, so there's still room in the squad for another.

With regards to "why aren't we playing them", there is definitely a risk in fielding a side made up entirely of kids, you need a couple of older heads in the line-up, which is probably why Guinan was getting the nod ahead of Tadhg at the start of the season.

So where are these older heads? Guinan has been dropped now that the transfer window has closed, despite Purcell being out for the season. Apart from Holt, do we have any players over 25 years old?

I'd like to think Guinan not being in the line-up is more to do with him offering sod all than the transfer window shutting. Sammo is playing with McKay up front because he feels that is the best option available to him, and if McKenzie is only fit enough for second-half cameos off the bench, which is the conclusion Sammo seemed to come to after the Shrewsbury game, then it's hard to argue with it. We badly need a 90-minute target man, preferably an experienced one, and Sammo will be as acutely aware of that as any of us are. "Several" clubs in our division are trailing Zola and I'd be shocked if we're not one of them, considering we're one of the clubs that probably needs a striker like him the most.

I agree with a lot of what you have put. But the supporters have been very supportive of him which wouldn't have been the case for a lot of managers. The squad is certainly capable of avoiding relegation, but that doesn't guarantee that it will happen.

I like the fact Sammo and Malcolm are trying to play football, and I like the fact they are giving the youth a go this year, but even if we stay up, if the youngsters impress then there is no guarantee they will still be here next year in any case.

For me this is a crucial part of Sammos regime and I think this could be the biggest week of his career so far. Next week is such a big game, and after Herefords positive result today far from a foregone conclusion.

I definitely don't think changing Sammo is the right thing to do, we need continuity right now rather than uncertainty. The problem is how long do we allow poor form to continue? Do we run the risk of leaving things too late? Then again its quite possible that in 5 games time we have gone unbeaten and all will be rosy again and I hope it is.

Onwards to next week and we as fans need to get right behind them from the off  :)

I agree with that.

And look where that got us!

About as far as the current set-up is getting us?

22nd in league two and one point off the relegation places to non-league, yeah?

When have we ever, in our entire history, turned down offers for our better players? If ANY of those players begin to stand out in matches and make names for themselves they'll be gone. You live in cloud cuckoo land Nut, I hope the weathers better than it is down here on earth.

If we are still there come May I will be stunned. You can't piece together a side with an average age of about 21 over the summer and expect them to be flying high and picking up results left, right and centre less than a quarter of the way through the season.

As I said, I hope that in this instance Cardoza resists the urge to cash in on them and looks at the bigger picture- the potential benefits of keeping this side together for a few seasons. The length of the contracts offered to Sammo and Crosby suggests to me that he understands this is a long-term project, not a short-term one, and as a result he'll be aware that the best way he can help his management staff is to keep things as stable as possible.

Although 3 wins in 20 is not a pretty statistic to look at, the squad Sammo has assembled is good enough to avoid relegation this year and with a whole campaign's experience under their belts, they'll be better for it next year- and unlike the side we had last season they do have a big future ahead of them. The key with any developing young side is stability, and I hope our supporters and board allow them that by not calling for Sammo's head so prematurely

NTFC NUT...this is where your pro-Sammo argumet falls flat. Not only has Sammo had two seasons...now, the great squad he's assembled is good enough to avoid relegation...FFS!!!...stop making convaluted excuses..reminds me of the two or three seasons of excuses for Dunn.
Frankly, sick of hearing " Sammo will learn from his mistakes" for another defensive line up ::)!

It aint going to happen and you're more foolish than I already take you for if you believe it will!

Anyway, even if Cardoza wanted to keep them, the players wouild leave like a shot if a bigger club comes in for them and why shouldn't they.

Figure this: Wedderburn didn't start at Torquay (Gilligan did) and we got thumped 3-0.  Wedderburn then started the next 6 games and we didn't lose.  Come Shrewsbury, guess what?  All of sudden Gilligan declares that he doesn't need an op, he starts (as does Wedderburn) but now Jacobs drops to the bench,  and we lose 3-1.  The loss of form  has coincided with the reinstatement of Gilligan and Osman in midfield.  There have been other reasons: the persistence with Guinan, the constant tinkering with the line up and formation, players playing out of position, lack of defensive cover, the loss of Purcell, and some rank poor signings.  But by and large is Sammo's team.  As I've said before I'm more than happy to see this eason out and let him be judged then, but I doubt others will be guite so forgiving.

Nut, I admire your optimism but I must ask, what is stable about sitting 22nd in the table almost a 1/4 of the way through the season having won only 3 games in the last 18? We have one experienced head that has a future at the club. One. No consistent goalscorer and our chairman is too tight to bring one in, yet we still decided to allocate a portion of our budget on Slowe and Harris? We decide to stop fielding a reserve side, and then are surprised that the likes of McKenzie aren't match fit? We cut a quarter of the budget and in the process lost a player you refer to as a '30 stone blob journeyman' who single-handedly rescued us innumerable points last season and was the only consistent goal threat in our squad (and haven't adequately replaced him nor look to be doing so anytime soon). Anytime a player shows promise (i.e. Jacobs) they're immediately being talked up as potentially being sold because we're so used to losing anyone with a bit of quality. What, to you, suggests that this is a setup with a positive future? A few seasons ago we were in the top-half of league one! Now we're 90th of 92 clubs in the league.

Firstly, Sammo has not had two seasons. He was appointed 12 months ago last Tuesday.

Secondly, he may not have assembled a "great" squad, but you'd be hard-pressed to name a squad in this division with more raw technical ability. There are several gems in our squad, and at the moment they are in the process of being polished.

Thirdly, Dunn is a great example of what I'm talking about: dropped several clangers in his early days that cost us but there is a good keeper in there who is now starting to come to the fore, and given a couple of seasons' experience is now looking like a very handy keeper at this level, with the potential to play higher.

And fourthly..."convaluted"...explain... ???

And what did it cost us exactly? Hmm..... Where are we now, compared to where we were in Dunn's early days?

I'm not disputing any of that, but I'm saying keeping the ship steady and not rocking it by mutineeing against the captain is the best chance we've got of putting it back on course.



We brought one in. He got injured. s***e luck, yeah, but not the chairman's fault. He then brought another one in (who admittedly doesn't look anything like sharp enough as of yet) and or all we know is working on bringing in a target man. As for Slowe and Harris, I'd imagine they're on peanuts. We need squad players, and with the wages we're paying to some of our starters and even some fringe players (Guinan, Hinton), getting in young, enthusiastic players at the peak of their fitness who will give it 100% every game for very little money, and be happy to bide their time on the bench and wait for their chance, is probably the best option open to us.



I loved Bayo as much as anyone, but he never was a long-term solution and was in fact drafted in as a short-term fix by Gray initially. He couldn't get a contract in League One this summer because signing someone with his injury and fitness record is too big a risk to take, and with a 25% reduced budget, keeping him on would mean the rest of the side would be even weaker. Biting the bullet and letting him go was a big blow initially but was, and still remains, the right decision imho.



If we can keep this set-up together, I firmly believe it has a bright future. The raw potential there is huge. If we do sell off our most promising players, break this squad up and go into further decline, there's only one man to point the finger at when it all goes wrong and that man sure isn't Sammo.

It's bloody hard sometimes as a supporter and I know the stats don't lie.....however I can't help but feel we just need to hold our nerve (chairman, players, manager and supporters) and things will turn round.

I came away from the Bradford and Chesterfield games feeling more positive than I had for a long, long time.  I could finally see Sammo's style of play creeping through.  You could tell there were still issues to resolve and we were a long way from the finished article but the signs are there of a decent footballing side. 

What I enjoyed most was the confidence we had started to find while on the ball.  The players, for the most part, were becoming much more composed and were starting to choose the right options especially allowing for Thornton and McKay being the two main outlets.  We clearly need more of a cutting edge and generally better quality in the final third but surely even the most hardened cynic can see what they are trying to achieve.

Sammo is making mistakes but then I'd be shocked if he wasn't.  He is maybe tinkering too much to try and find something that's missing but he's also getting some things right.

Granted Macclesfield was by all accounts a very, very bad day at the office but having been to the game today, up until the sending off and even then for most of the first half the signs were again of a decent performance.

Like I say the stats don't lie and the results and league position aren't good enough but I've seen many managers leave this club and for most it was obvious the time had come.  I don't feel that way about Sammo.  He badly needs a result next week but I don't think it should be an all or nothing game as today proves that circumstances can affect greatly the result of one game.  My own personal opinion is that this is the time when people really need to dig deep and keep the faith as I don't believe adding pressure to anyone is going to help especially with the type of football we are trying to play.

OK..rephrase...12 months isn't two years...but is well into TWO SEASONS.

Dunn..SEVERAL clangers...sorry to answer a question with a question..but what do you class as 'several'...a substantial quantity to ensure relegation?

Convoluted....A  rather long..twisted..set of excuses..in which no matter how many failures there are..a great keeper..a great team..a great manager is just around the corner!
 ::)


 

I don't think last seasons rescue mission constitutes a whole season on which we can judge sammo. He is still being bound by the fact our 2 highest earners are players from the gray era, of which both have been.transfer listed, thus reducing the budget that had already been reduced even further.

Coolcat, you can.not honestly say you were against sammo after the Liverpool, bradford and Chesterfield games, so why has one poor game and one game where by all accounts we probably wouldst of lost with 11 men changed your mind?

Sammo is a big a legend at the club as you can get, he deserves more time. If were still around the relegation zone come the start of January then by all means contemplate sacking him, but right now, he deserves time and respect.

The main critisism I have of Sammo is his inability to sign a centre forward, which most people agree we desperately need, to provide a more positive team formation.
Again I have been told we tried to sign two strikers this week but failed. This following on from statements TWO months ago we required another striker (McKenzie only just replaced Purcells tragic injury).
I can imagine going into my Chairman at work and saying I tried hard but nobody will give me any orders!!!

The quality is there in this squad, this is no comparison between the current poor league form and the situation we had under Gray where the league form was also bad but additionally the squad was simply not good enough. I'm prepared to stick my neck out and back this lot. I also felt that after his cameo appearance yesterday, McKenzie deserves a start. There is no way he was offside for his "goal", the ball had stuck to him throughout the move as he went through and there was always a Cheltenham defender goal-side of him. That linesman got so many decisions wrong, he was a disgrace.
Play McKenzie and McKay together because McKay alone can't run the show. If they can't produce the goods then fair enough think again, but they must be given a chance. Our goal tally is pitiful and trying to play without a proper striker is such an obvious mistake that it's time we stopped fannying about with it. What we decide to do as a one-off against Ipswich is different, but in the league we need to compete up front.
Despite us being down to 10 men we produced a storming finish, this was NOT another Macclesfield.
The BBC cameraman missed the alleged stamp by Beckwith, and so many people have differing opinions. I'm sure I saw him return deliberately to stand on the bloke's stomach, but I'd love to be proved wrong. Did anyone have a cameraphone running?

The headline on the offy says it all: 'Decisions Cost Cobblers'. Whilst the writer is clearly referring to a few alleged blunders by the referee, the most costly decisions were made by Sammo himself.

Managers should be judged on their decision making: on their ratio of good to bad calls. Let's look at some of the decisions Sammo has made recently:

1. The continued selection of a half-crocked Ryan Gilligan ahead of a fit Wedderburn
2. The constant tinkering with the team, which suggests he still has no earthly idea what our best 11/formation is. Our decent post-xmas run last year was built on a steady team selection. What price consistency?
3. The signing of Parker, a player no better than what we had before in a position in which we had ample cover.
4. The waste of the striker budget on Purcell who, even before his unfortunate injury, was deemed an inferior option to Steve Guinan.


In terms of results and league position we have made no progress since last year. I'm not sure that Sammo is learning from his mistakes and improving as a manager. There is now a lot of pressure on the Hereford game. There are no managers at any level who can lose four games on the trot and walk away unscathed.





  

I must say - I didn't go yesterday though - that I am again starting to seriously doubt Sammo's managerial capabilities. Yesterdays team selection was...strange...to say the least. He is clearly the only man on the planet who thinks Gilligan is a better option currently than Wedders. The one up front thing is not a joke anymore. Whilst it enables us to play nice approach play, we simply don't have enough bodies in the box at the end of the countless good moves we are putting together each week.

We talk about bad luck. But my definition of bad luck when it comes to football is shots that hit the post, bar...pens not given, pens given to opponents mistakenly etc. None of these we can grasp on, we simply are not testing the oppositions goal. The offside decision yesterday was a one off, and arguably cost us a point. BUT after 11 games where should we truly be in the league? Probably where we are in all honestly. We've played well at times, but Macclesfield, Torquay and Shrewsbury were terrible. Accrington at home, Wycombe at home...got what we deserved on both occasions. Southend...maybe a tad fortunate to win that one, Chesterfield we played superbly and with another body up front would have battered them.

Theres a few on here that have changed their tune since the infamous 'broom thread' I started this time last year, thats for sure! But sacking the guy is clearly not an option because both him and Crosby have 3 year contracts. So our only option is to keep backing them and hope that we start moving up the table. I think we will but not if he persists with playing one striker up top. He sounded very agitated again when interviewed yesterday - he's clearly feeling the pressure. But he loves our club like we all do. I must say though that if it was an 'outsider' managing the team in this way, I would want him out. Its that area where Im struggling with.

I've seen enough of Weddderburn this season to know he is better than a injured Gilligan!!! Have you not been watching this season?

What is it that makes him better than Gilligan though? I don't doubt he has the ability to knock the ball beautifully over 40 yards, but he's slow and doesn't strike me as strong for his size. I think Gilligan needs replacing but I don't believe Wedderburn is the right player to do that.

And in all honesty, centre-mid isn't our biggest problem right now. We can f*** about with midfielders 'til the cows come home but if we can't score what's the point?

Where's the Sampson or new broom guy gone?  :-*

Please tell me you joking Geoff? I agree centre midfield, maybe not our biggest priority right now, but how you can even begin to justify leaving Weddberburn out is beyond me. Him and Osman were starting to form a very effective partnership, something which is important, and more than that, i thought he looked a very decent player. And in the X games Gilligan has played this season, he has done sweet FA.

It may not be the be all + end all of our teams fourtunes about who starts in centre midfield, but Sammo's stubborness in picking an unfit, ineffective Gilligan is causing a doubts to be raised over his manegerial capibilities, similar to when Guinan started the first few games of the season ahead of a, then fit Purcell.

We lost 5 on the trot around November time under Gray in 07/08 when we nearly reached the League One play-offs. Very few people would have wanted Sammo out as recently as the Tuesday before last- we were 8th at one stage against Chesterfield, and a point off the playoffs, having reached the 4th round of the Carling Cup for the first time since the sixties. So you can only assume it's 2 and a bit games (admittedly they were poor performances) that has turned a significant number of our fanbase against Sammo. Why?

Look at the f***ing table!!! And it's not just the previous 2 and a bit games, it's his record over the past 20 or so games. Lose against Hereford and Sammo really has put us in the sh*t.

Nut...for me, and I believe most, its not so much the results that are the issue. After all, we are only 11 games into the season.

(1) Team selections. The Gilligan/Wedders, Guinan/Purcell, Parker/Jacobs, 1 up front etc.
(2) His signings. Whilst some have been very good, a lot of them have been poor to say the least. With Purcell he was unlucky with him getting injured - but that doesn't disguise the fact that Guinan was favoured him for the first few games so a question about that signing is also raised. In addition, Hall cant get in the team, Herbert has rarely started in the last 11 months, Harris, Slowe etc.
(3) His complete failure to replace Bayo.
(4) His complete failure to produce an inhouse central defensive partnership that is even adequate for league2.
(5) His man management skills - for me it was shocking what he did with Harris at Shrewsbury, I accept though that others will see that differently.

He's brought some good things to the party as well so I know there is mitigation. The results in the Carling Cup for starters. His openness and straight forward talking. The downsizing of the playing budget, his failure to get shot of Guinan and Hinton hasn't helped his case to re-shape the team as he has liked.

But as far as I see it, the negatives currently far outweigh the positives. I want him to succeed like no other, so Im not about to start chanting Sammo Out. But he's been in the job now for 12 months and overall I would give him a grade C. The momentum though is not with him which is the very worrying part of it.

I think we should just keep sacking managers. That's always been a recipe for success.

I take what you're saying fella...and would largely have to agree with you. However, rightly or wrongly..when I think of Sammo's tenure...Notts County (a) last season...always springs to the fore...followed by a (cup run and two games aside)..a defensive..toothless lineup and team. Yesterday (Cheltenham) again highlighted..as did the great passing game v Spires..a complete lack of creating clear chances...let alone putting them away!
One up front...related surely?

Here's a hypothetical question for you all.  If, and I stress IF, the Cobblers were to be relegated, would you be happy to see Sammo start the 2011/12 season as manager?  Straight yes or no answer.

No.

The problem stems from the appointment process. As TFAMH said, from the multitude of managers appointed by DC, only Calderwood has been a qualified success. We've also had Fenwick, Wilkinson and Gorman, all of whom were absolute joke appointments.  Sammo is not quite in that category, and his win against Liverpool will live long in the memory. However, i've never been convinced of his tactical nous and his ability in the transfer market.

Sammo will get more time than most - he's a club legend after all. If we lose against Hereford, though, I think many will call for his head.

Jesus wept i'm glad i'm on holiday.

Answer is no obviously, but I'm sure it won't come to that.

The guys given alot to this club, want him here or not show some respect.

No

Sammo  would need to be sacked before we were relegated in order to find someone capable of keeping us up......if we think of getting out of this division as being tough...try the Blue Square prem, with a plethora of ex- league sides stuck in it!

It will be Sampsons fault if we go down because he is the manager & as the manager he signs the players,picks the team & tells them how to play so the buck stops with him,just because he is an ex Cobbler who is allso a legend do,snt mean he should escape any flack that may come his way

I take it that's a "NO"?!

To be honest, if we go down we won't come straight back up regardless of who's in charge. I can't think of many sides that have done that at all. We'd be gearing up for a good few seasons down there. So no, I wouldn't want Sammo in charge next season if he was to take us down, but whoever would come in would have an extremely tough job ahead of them (that's not even taking into account DC's budget cuts etc.).

No

in ten games time when were like 2 points outside play offs or in them, im gunna copy and paste some of those quotes that are bouncing around in this thread, im just gunna sit back and laugh at those idiots who want him out, maybe if we beat ipswich and get to quarter finals of the carling cup, you might forgive him. sammo and malcolm are building sumthing at northampton, we havn't had that since calderwood, it took him 3 attempts to get out of this s***hole of a division, man up the lot of you and respect that rome wasn't built in a day and that when we hit form were gunna trounce teams in this divison, like we did against bradford, like we did in the 1st half against chesterfield and like we did against f***in LIVERPOOL!

Happy pills again Si?

Face it, without the cup run i think there'd be little argument here

ha! i havn't made my mind up yet.

I know people like to pretend they read what they want to but just as a matter of fact, has anybody called for Sammo to be sacked YET?

Exactly. The purpose of my hypothetical question was simply to test the wisdom of offering Sammo a 3 year deal in the event of relegation.  One would hope that there'd be some sort of trigger clause of we were to be.  I think we owe it to Sammo to be judged at the end of the season.

We have an interesting parallel with Brentford, where my Bees colleague told me to look at their forum today.  They're in an almost identical position to us (except Scott actually got them promoted) and in the same round of the Carling after beating Everton. They almost universally want Scott sacked and now, and you could cut and paste their comments into these threads.  One post is a classic, their very own Nut launches a staunch defence of Scott, but then rounds it off by saying "I think we need to give him 8 weeks"!

I don't think any league team that has been relegated has come back straight up ???

I can't think of one, but the teams that go down always seem to expect an instant return therefore whoever the manager is is pretty much under instant pressure. Just look at Darlo/Grimsby, go on their message boards, they make this place look like heaven.

This thread is one of the reasons why I was never sure Sammo should get the job in the first place - he is a cobblers legend and this was always going to happen if things went wrong  :(

Shrewsbury and Carlisle have both been relegated and bounced straight back. Lincoln and Darlington in the late 80s.

Well, I didn't think he should have got the job in the first place...Does that count? ;D

Yes !

No. This is taking the pi**

No, but if it came to that, I'd be stunned.

This is just stupid, Give him some time at least to christmas,

Stupid is as stupid does.

How on earth can you put a timescale on these sort of things? If we lose heavily to Hereford on Saturday and the team showed little spirit or fight then Sampsons position would surely be in doubt. If our current form continues until Christmas we'd be f***ed, there has to be an improvement long before then. You have to judge things day to day, game by game. I think almost everybody would like to see Sammo make a success of this job but wanting something and actually getting something are two completely different things. We've won twop games out of eleven, are you seriously suggesting we leave it until Christmas if that record was to become 2 games out of 21? Don't be so bloody daft!

how can you assume we are going to loose the next ten before christmas,
we played well agaist chesterfield and were unlucky yes we had a bad result and performace agaist maccesfield but we were well on top at cheltenham, before and upto half time with ten men,
you have to give a manager time, otehrwise if you go through a bad patch like we are (2 wins in 11) clubs will be sacking managers every few months,
You got to give managers half a season 23 games, then see where we are then
WE ARE 7 POINTS OFF PLAY OFFS theres 35 games left!

Sammo Out !!

I'm not assuming anything, you're the one saying we should wait until Christmas WHATEVER the results are in the meantime. I was just showing how stupid that remark is.

As for your last sentence, we were in the same position last year and went on a long winning run but still couldn't make up the difference. I think it highly unlikely we'll reproduce that sort of run this time round but hey, fingers crossed.

I aint saying he should be given time to christmas end of story,
But people calling for his head after we loose three in a row just frustrates me,
I agree what you are saying marvo but he should be given some time to turn it around,
If we loose the next 3, action may be taken.
But he has had 11 games out of 46.
there is no reason why we cant loose 2 in the next 11 be around the play offs and then everyone will be praising him again!

and I'll ask once again, just WHO is calling for his head?

sammo out

The whole situation is in Sammo's control.
He has assembled a good footballing defence and midfield. What he has not done is obtain a front two who are good enough for this division. DC has provided the funds to obtain the strikers, so I assume it is Sammo who has not been able to persuade the required players to sign. He has been very unlucky in the injury to Purcell, but 6 weeks ago it was obvious we required a second quality forward (McKenzie is only a replacement for Purcell...probably). Besides getting the players to play, a major part of his job is obtaining new players to improve the squad. Something managers like Graham Carr and Dave Bowen were excellent at and a major part of their success.
Over to you Sammo, DC has supplied the tools.

Has he?

That was funny, County Cobblers says "DC has supplied the tools" and straight away Ralap turns up.  ;D

Relap-YES.
Have you not noticed that funds from Liverpool and Ipswich have been promised to Sammo instead of previous windfalls being swallowed up in the club.
You must pay attention!
Life is more fun being optimistic instead of a manic depressive.

I always understood a manic depressive to be someone who swings from being wildly optimistic to wildly pessimistic. Remind you of anyone, County?

 ;D Pure coincidence mate. I have been having a right laugh at the s***e being written on here over the last few weeks by the Bi-polar lobby.

County Cobbler, Mr Cardoza has made many promises in his time at the club and we are still waiting to see the majority of them come to fruition. I prefer to wait patiently, seeing is believing with anything involving Mr Cardoza as far as I am concerned.

You obviously don't know me at all CC so I better inform you that I am still optimistic (not blindly like some) about things at the club currently. I whole heartedly go along with the McHammer view on things. We should be patient and give Sammo as much time as he needs, he is still learning the job and so is making mistakes along the way but I believe in him and the squad of players he is putting together. Liverpool was a night never to be forgotten, the football they played up there and in subsequent games until Chesterfield scored their first was some of the best I have seen in my 45 years watching the club. Why would I be pessimistic? I was pleased to hear Mr Cardoza giving his support to Sammo during the Zola thing, I don't think he does it enough and I certainly don't think he has supported him enough financially. Hopefully he will soon and I will thank him for it. We have known for months that we needed more options up front, that should have been his top concern. I look forward to the new players coming in.

If those are the words of a manic depressive...

Really? 

I sense some backtracking on DC's part (and it does sort of create some doubt about just how far he is prepared to go to defend Sammo):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/n/northampton_town/9083627.stm

It's a pretty insipid statement, and nowhere have I heard him "promise" funds from Liverpool and Ipswich to Sammo.  I could have sworn I heard him on the telly this week saying that he hadn't made as much as he thought we would out of the Liverpool game (though didn't mention the additional Southend ticket sales). 

Finally a view i can agree with.The season is a marathon not a sprint.Patience is needed by all

Ecoutez et repetez!

I am more than happy to see Sammo judged at the end of the season.  Others, I sense, are going to be less forgiving!

If Mr Cardoza was to get rid of Sammo before the end of the season can you imagine the pathetic budget the next victim will have next season?

I don't think we will be relegated and I wouldn't be too unhappy with another mid-table finish as long as Sammo is allowed to continue his work in the same manner and hopefully with a bigger budget. I am excited by the young talented players at the club, that's most of them, and I hope the club carry on bringing through talented youngsters and support them with a good standard of experienced players keen to play a passing game on the ground.

 

Exactly ! I would echo the sentiments of many that patience is needed

I think Saturday is huge. If we were to lose, there would unquestionably be massive pressure on Sammo and DC, and the fans will definitely start to turn vocal. We've got some tough games to come, Oxford away, Gillingham won't be easy despite their dire away record, and Port Vale on the horizon. The slide has got to be halted soon otherwise it could become a very difficult one to arrest.

Totally agree Marvo. Also, irritating to say the least that questioning Sammo is some kind of knee jerk reaction..well into his second season ffs!
Yes, we had mini revival, starting with Dagenham game (h) before xmas..fizzling out after a high at Grimsby...ended up no higher than at least should have been expected!

Loose: Essex girl

Lose: Cobblers ;)

to be fair to the big wood, our defense is a little loose thus causing us to lose in a loose way.

marvo's probably out in some big wood right now flashing his headlights.

Is that like your pet name for them?

From todays Chron.......

http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/sport/football/cobblers/northampton_town_cardoza_tips_sampson_to_steer_cobblers_to_promotion_1_1560236


no pressure Sammo!!!

So many great soundbites in one interview.....

“Sammo is taking us in the right direction", 
“We’re very close to getting wins and turning it around", 
"the football we are producing at the moment is the best I’ve ever seen here",
 “We’ve come a long way",
 “It’s taking us a little while longer than we thought"
“I left Cheltenham feeling pretty upbeat on Saturday because I thought we were by far the better team.”

Hmmmmmm!

I am with you there Nigel.

I'm not.

Well not if we go down.

Well not if we are in the same predicament at Christmas.

Well not if we lose our next three matches.

Maybe if we win the League Cup though!

Kicking Sammo out now wont solve anything. I think he potentially has a long term future here if he is given support and a bit of time.

I like the fact he answers the questions too.

Honest words on the offy site about the Zola and Guinan situations and offering Jacobs a new deal.

Why, though? Is it just because he happens to be a cobblers legend and a man of great loyalty and integrity? When Stuart Gray started losing matches and making bad decisions everybody wanted him out asap.  Why is Sammo a special case? 

Now I'm not saying Sammo should be sacked. Not yet anyway. However, we have to look critically at his decisions and ask if he is improving as a manager and we are improving as a team.

Watch this space, he has 'irons in the fire' again...  ;)

Covering all bases!!!

Sammo is the man.....to get us out of trouble
Sammo is the man.....to lead us back into the Football League
Sammo is the man.....who'll kop the flack if we go down
Sammo is the man.....who'll take all the blame whilst others get away scot free!

I too would support the bloke if we went down, but only on the following basis:

(1) That he addresses the obviously shortcomings of the current squad and fast.
(2) He stops persisting with this ridiculous 1 up front formation, particularly for home games.
(3) He continues to learn from his mistakes.

At the end of the day - and I often defended Gray on this basis as well - many of the problems he is experiencing are out of his control. The budget cuts, failing to off load high earners from previous regimes etc. BUT the mistakes that he has made in recent times have been fundamentally very basis ones and I personally want to see signs that these mistakes are not recurring ones. I readily admit to knowing very little about football compared with an ex-professional who has spent his life playing and coaching it...but sometimes its easier to look in from the outside. We all benefit from being able to do that.

The current results cannot be blamed on DC. The formations, tactics etc - DC is not the man who decides these. Sammo, unlike Gray has not lost any player for a fee which has not been returned to him to spend on a replacement. Gray lost a fantastic goalkeeper on deadline day lets not forget! Sammo has also had the benefit of being able to choose his own assistant manager whereas Gray was 'given' his assistant to him! It really is down to Sammo now, to at least finish in the top half of the table. He's been given the tools to do that job - lets hope he fulfils the minimum criteria!

I like the formation.

I find it funny that people want Sammo to stop playing with 1 up front yet when we were playing with a traditional 442 formation people were saying we need to play with a 451 formation as it suits our players better

The formation suits our squad; unfortunately, Sammo is selecting the wrong players to play in it.  Wedderburn and Osman should be the defensive midfielders with Thornton ahead of them in the whole and two widemen (Davis and Mckay?) on either wing. The much heralded targetman would be the one to play up front.

What they didn't tell you was that the fire had gone out weeks ago.  Yet another week of "we'lre looking to bring in..."waffle, waffle, blah, blah, blah "we've a few names in mind..." drone, drone, "but he's injured..." zzz, zzz "he wants this, he wants that...." fizzzz phuttt, the Zola firework was a dud.  It's all rather tiresome and predictable. I'd far rather they say there's no bloody money, this squad has got to get us out of trouble, and be done with it. 

exactly!

we need to play 4.5.1 cuz thats where we get the best out of thornton, and hes our best player. we HAVE got to make the most of that, we just need that one striker thats good enuf to play uptop on his own.

Well, if it was bringing goals and points, I'd agree with you. But at the moment, it isn't. So we need to be flexible enough to try a different system...it isn't anything dramatically different that may emerge this afternoon, and if it doesn't do the trick then switching between 2 systems is hardly rocket science: indeed, I'd hope we have more than just 2 systems up our sleeve! What's let us down in the past is in sticking to a rigid system during a game when we can all see it isn't working, but we stick with it until we go a goal behind, then it's often too late to get control back.

Did Sammo start his match summary on the radio by mentioning he hopes this team will go on to win promotion after today. WTF?  :-\

Alot of people are quick to say get rid of Sammo, but who would any of you have to replace him? Off the top of my head there isn't a massive list of names available

the LMA don't still do that 'list of unemployed managers' do they?

http://www.leaguemanagers.com/


Whole list of managers on here.

Hardly anything to excite me there.

Jim Gannon would be superb, but he wants to stay op narth for starters.  Penney did well at Donny but was a flop at Oldham.

We could of course do a Kettering and appoint someone from some random league.

John Deehan?

I don't know, but the point in hand is Sammo isnt the man. It would be crazy talk to say he should remain just because there isnt anybody else adequate to replace him right now.

Poach Justin E from rushden he's doing a decent job

Glen Thurgood

Clarence - He's been here long enough now, about time we gave him the job.

link to listen below

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/n/northampton_town/9099115.stm

That counts me in then I have none of them

I think the job should go to the highest bidder.

he did trotty. made me snot quietly.

Did he say anything else interesting?

no you non-carer.

You're getting quite boring now. If I didn't care I wouldn't still go. There's a difference between not letting something bother you and nor caring.

So today didn't bother you?  ???

come here!

Go for the cheap option ...........................

again.

NOT.

geez you guys are making me laugh, i need it!  ;D

I wish i could find something to laugh about...

what a shambles

Is that the worst half of Cobblers football ever ???

well the question he got asked was wether or not he had himself been involved in a match quite like that when he played for us, he said yes against halifax when we lost 4.3, but that year we got promoted, the guy was trying to make i light hearted joke in a bad day at the office. he always comes across very honest, ive still got total respect for the guy he never chats crap. good on ya sammo.

he'd just bang his drum at the team  :D

i reckon gordon strachen will become available very soon?

Ian Atkins has been quoted as saying he feels his time at Sixfields has anothe chapter but being out of the game so long would he still be in touch ???

A fantasy management team of Woddy & Nord, Gareth Southgate & Andy Woodman so you get a goalkeeping coach as well.

Obvious BIG names Paul Jewell & Iain Dowie but we couldn't really afford them.

Colin Calderwood but would the entertainment factor get a thumbs down.

A rank outsider Martin Hunter who has managed England youth teams & has been in coaching set ups at Norwich, Southampton, Watford & Darlington who used to be my sports teacher back in the 80's managed to turn me into a fairly decent runner back in the day & could motivate any of us to become better.

Considering the result he sounded quite chipper but Geoff Doyle didn't really give him a grilling :-\

Jim Gannon..serious? Wasn't he a total disaster at Motherwell?...Or was that Giles Coke? ;)

Mike Newell? Dean Glover? Martin Allen? Paul Ince?

Good call.

Mike Bassett.

But careful one too many and it could turn......


(http://)

Personally, i wouldn't go anywhere near Newell. Dont even know who Glover is, Ince might want a highish wage so i'd take Mad Dog

Looking on that website there are a lot of good, divisive, organised managers on there! Who would soon shape this 'promotion' worthy so called shambles, oh sorry team into shape! Sorry Sammo, do the decent thing step down let someone else enter this mad town! Realistically, in sammo's year incharge what's he actually done other than... Bottle the end of last season when it mattered, IMO let two of our best players leave in guttridge n bayo ( okay guttridge was replaced with wedderburn, who for the life of me doesn't get a start), beat Liverpool, and slowly drag us down the league?

I think the icing on the cake was when Sammo slammed the ball down on the floor. A totally pathetic thing to do which obviously shows he cares but if he can't keep his composure how're his team going to? Any idiot can show passion, very few can manage.

geoff doyle couldn't grill a smart price pork chop.

Doyle couldn't grill a bloody beef burger never mind ask proper interview questions.

Doyle was abysmal on the radio yesterday. First he said it was the players fault, and then he criticised all three of Sammo's substitutions.Mind you, he was probably as bewildered as we all were at the sudden collapse.

Seem to remember the majority of people on here calling for another manager doing a good job just down the road before Sammo was appointed. Luckily he ended up at the scum or we could have already been relegated!.

Conference to the championship is a huge leap. Cooper should never have taken the job at Posh; he was on a hiding to nothing. Conference to league two is a much easier transition. I'd be happy with Edinburgh. He knows his way around the lower leagues, and presumably has some decent contacts from his Spurs/Portsmouth days. Taking the Dims into the play-offs last season was a major achievement given their lack of resources.

We'd have to pay compensation but personally I'd much rather pay for a decent manager than take a punt on a wild card like Zola.

Justin Edinburgh?

Just like that bloke from Kettering that was the next saviour? Did well with sh*teborough, but only from a Npton perspective.

Why do you let stuff bother you when you have no say on the outcome. Just move on to the next game.

Roll on Oxford.

 ;D  ;D  ;D

wow. just wow. It'll be Michael Jacobs

Some of you lot naming managers that have been heard of outside of their own families! you jokers! They would cost more than £300 a week

I think Tim Oglethorpe would ask questions in a certain way that would get a true reaction.

Dont get Edinburgh. We need someone who's an actual proven manager. The only manager that has resembled that inthe DC era is Gorman, and he came at a really bad time

Wasn't too impressed with Sammo on the radio yesterday, should have apologised to the fans but didn't, also the whole part about the players doing the exact opposite of what he said at half time won't have gone down too well.

If he hasn't already lost the dressing room, these sort of comments could very well lead to that being the case and once that happens the manager has to go i'm afraid....

Edinburgh took the Dims to the play-offs last year and is currently sitting pretty in joint fourth having won four out of the last five games, despite not having great resources. I don't know about you, but that's enough proof for me that he knows how to manage a football team. There isn't a huge difference between League Two and the conference as the likes of Dagenham proved last season.

As for Gorman, that was one of the worst appointments of all IMO. The man was quite clearly not in a fit emotional state to manage a football team. Also whilst he may have had a proven track record as an assistant, aside from half a season at Wycombe before their capitulation, he was never all that as a manager.

 

I'm not sure what was said at half time. It was obvious we was leaving ourselves so stretched at 3-0 and 3-1. Not once did I see from my position behind the home bench any instruction not to leave themselves so open.

The same thing with Parker. Sammo said he was substituted for losing his shape. Not once did I see Sammo or Crosby trying to get an instruction to him.

When you criticise players in public, which Sammo did, you lose respect of ALL your players, not just those you criticise. I don't think the players respect him and for any manager, that's the end of the road.

Shame Steve Tilson took the Lincoln job as he would have been perfect. I'd go for a hungry non league manager who can get in decent players on the cheap. He will also know all about the non league should we drop into it!  :o

How about poaching Guinan from under Hereford's noses - that would really be revenge.











Or would it?


Seriously though I bet Sean Parrish would get it.  Promote from within and cheap.  Could you see that mindset happening.

I wonder if Paul Ince would want to start at the bottom rung of the ladder again ???

We would not be in the mess we are now in if Cooper had taken charge. Well I suppose technically we could be bottom or 2nd from bottom, but somehow I doubt we would be.

Back to this thread, my choice would now be the current manager of the Village Idiots.

Be realistic folks, there's only one candidate in DC's eyes.
Crosby.

Yep me too

Another cheap option .................



that'll be bl88dy expensive in the long run.

I was thinking that...like with Sammo...not really the cheap option was he? Or at least he won't be...

we could just stay with sammo.
show the legend some respect, and watch him turn things around?
what da think?

I don't care if he is god, he isn't up to the job. I love him as a club legend as much as everyone, but he isn't a good manager.

.................and if he didn't, there would be those saying that he just stands there doing nothing and doesn't care..                        ..it is a fine line... ;)

We will not go down, keep him and let Sammo learn and gain his experience this season, (which is how you gain experience in this game, chicken and egg syndrome).  Some new managers are lucky and jump straight into a winning stream but are found out when the going gets tough.  Sammo is getting a good grounding and experience at the hard end, what for next season????


We will win the league at a canter ........................ 8)

Perhaps it was recorded at half time. ;D

Totally agree.....the slippery slope, Sammo, such a shame.....I just don't know what Crosby is in all this, surely he can't plead naivety ( having said that ask any Sunderland fan...they think he's crap)

He's doing a great job at the Dims under very difficult circumstances.He's desperate to be a league a league manager, something that he'll never achieve at the Dims.Therefore, he's available, he's cheap and some club is going to get him sooner or later and I just hope it's us.

I don't think I'm alone when I say that I'm gutted for Sammo with the ways things are going.  But what to do with Sammo? It would be harsh to get rid of him. Would he be sacked? Re-employed within the club? Or will he resign? I don't get the whole notion of who else would we have as a manager as there is always someone better out there, but look at Cardoza's record, not once has he ever signed a successful lower league manager, he always goes for someone who was either an assistant manager or an unexperienced/young coach or John Gorman!

I'm all for giving Sammo a chance, but 4 defeats in a row, but on Saturday winning 3-0 at half time and then losing 4-3 at home against a team at the bottom of the league who are managerless. It's not looking good. I also thought it was obvious (since pre-season) that we needed a decent League 2 central defender, but we still don't have him, basically a player like Sammo!

Stick with Sammo.

The press asked the wrong question. Shouldn't have asked why they took McKenzie off but why they replaced him with Guinan?

This is the man who had been nothing short of shocking and then you have the issue of him applying for their manager's job.

Sammo should have brought either Jacobs or Rodgers on for Guinan and it wouldnt have hurt to let Parker go forward.

Sammo did little to get Parker to track back or indeed calm his side down who were playing like nutters

Hibernian are announcing their new manager at a press conference this evening and rumour has it that it's Calderwood.

If Sammo went it would be a very sad day for us all but he has to be on the brink after 4 successive defeats and a terrible league position.  Chances are under DC's stewardship Crosby would be asked to become manager although his loyalties may be with Sammo and so he may decline gracefully.  Whatevever the outcome there are glaring weaknesses throughout this team such as Dunn, all our centre backs,  Guinan and a number of fringe players, that all need to be addressed as a priority.  Also, as we saw on Saturday there is a complete lack of leadership on the pitch when things go wrong and, as I commented on another posting, it is no good Sammo throwing his toys out of the 'pram on the touchline at such times.

Good luck to him, hey drilling  ;D i seem to remember a post when Burnley were in the prem and  Newcastle were in the cjhampionship, you gloating about Gray being at a higher level, just another club he got relegated eh ! whilst CC has 3 promotions in 6 years hmmm not bad  ( tounge in cheek mate)  :-*

Sammo needs the backing of those players he gave a break to, the likes of Thornton,  Dunn, Johnson, Herbert, Holt and Rodgers and by showing faith in faultering players such as Gilligan, Mckay and Guinan has got him to the brink of the sack. Hopefully those players realise that and collectively give it thier all to halt the rot, thats if its not too late.

I wouldn't decribe McKay as faultering.  He is a promsing player but has been labouring up front on his own without having the pace and physique needed in the hurly burly of League 2.  As for Gilligan, he always seems to be an automatic choice whoever is manager but although he works hard I don't see that he has improved or shows any signs of improving.  But it is the spine of the team that matters and we are weak in goal and at centre back.  One swallow doesn't make a summer so far as McKenzie is concerned but we will see. We are still short of a another quality striker given that Guinan is past it.  I don't see Harris, Rodgers or Herbert as being up to the standard required and Slowe appears to be an unfortunate signing.

Stick with the cheap option.

Wow, a Scottish premiership team has come in for him. Thats the same league that Giles Coke played in after leaving us. And did remarkably well in, before rejoining an English league 1 team.

I would say thats about his level mate, as long as he's got more money than all of his rivals of course!  ;D ;D

Send for Strachan.......Not

Stick with Sammo

Confirmed now:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/h/hibernian/9102714.stm

And Drilling, somehow I can't see him having a bigger budget at Hibs than Celtic or Rangers. Well, maybe Rangers... ;D

Thats them fcuked then! They are currently in 8th place, I will be keeping a close eye on their results from now on in. This is Colin's first true test I reckon!  ;D ;D

Rodgers is better than the other two, looks a solid option at right-mid, not a starter every week but a decent option for cover, also the fact that he can play either side of full-back is handy.
Herbert's an impact sub at best.
Harris and Slowe.... Enough said.

It's a real shame, I like Hibs, took in a game at Easter Road when I was up in Edinburgh a few years ago and have a soft spot for them...but they are absolutely f***ed now. Let's see how Calderwood does with virtually no transfer budget and a raucous crowd of supporters who know they should be higher, and demand results- and quick. Can't see him lasting long and they will be deep in the mire by the time he leaves.

Hindsight is such a wonderful thing.

When they were talking of appointing Gorman I was against it as said as much. I was in a very small minority and got a lot of stick on here. It turned out I was right but it amazes me how you lot can have a go at Cardoza over his choice when the MAJORITY on here were all in agreement. In fact, the one manager you didn't want was Calderwood as you had never heard of him at the time!

Well a manager is always going to become the "wrong choice" sooner or later because either his team will go on a poor run of form, he will be branded "clueless" and sacked, or he will jump ship, be a c*** for doing this, and become a hate figure. So just saying you were against Gorman's appointment at the time doesn't make you some modern-day Nostradamus.

I got the impression that Sammo wasn't convinced Osman was actually injured.

You prick, I'm not nor was I ever making the point I was right, the point is the amount of people on here who suddenly deride other peoples decisions, in this case Cardoza, when they AGREED with the appointmenmt in the first place!

As for you Nut, I suggest other posters click on your profile and read your posts over the last couple of months. Never has anybody "switched sides" on the same subject so often, nor have they got so much wrong, so often. Your track record is appaling, in fact if you say ever say something, the safe bet is to form the opposite opinion!

 :D f***ing hell, struck a nerve there, did I? Just saying that being against Gorman's appointment at the time wasn't some kind of incredible prediction- we could all see he was still recovering from going through a difficult time, which had adversely affected his spell at Wycombe, and therefore it was a big gamble- and nor doesn't make your word gospel in every discussion about potential new managers.

Once again you completely miss the whole point of the post which was not about me but about you lot who support almost every terrible decision that is made until it goes awry then have the nerve to complain about the decision. Hypocrite!

I am getting bored of listening to Sammo on the radio.  If the result hasnt gone well he is too quick too slag off individual players and think that has come back to haunt him.  Slagging off HIS defence often this season is one example. They are now really full of confidence! Wouldnt mind if he fixed what he is quick to moan about.

I think on the touchline and when interviewed he comes accross has so inexperienced when results are not going his way.

On the other hand , If i feck up at work its me that gets the rollicking !! I didnt hear any players apologising to the fans for being fannies either . Sammo imo wasnt ever the right manager just yet . as for Guinan , he should have been subbed straight off for the reserve goalie if need be.

Then only player that apologised is the one who didn't need to!!!

It has been confirmed by a freind of mine who knows a relative of one of the coaches, that Sampson and malcom will lose their job after the ipswich game if it ends in defeat. If we somehow are successful against ipswich then their fate will be decided by the outcome of the gillingham game.
I am not just putting this out to start rumours. And it has come from a strong source.

Sack Gray and replace him with Sammo, sack Sammo and replace him with whoever.

It's a club level problem and not just a managerial one

3 Year contracts........madness.

It has been confirmed by a freind of mine who knows a relative of one of the coaches

And it has come from a strong source.
 
;D

That would figure from what I have pieced together from lots of circumstantial observations. We cannot allow the club to plunge into the Conference, so if this sacking comes to pass then I shall have every sympathy with the Chairman's wish to do something decisive to keep us up...however I do think that the timetable of Ipswich/Gillingham is a bit too tight and he needs to hold faith just a touch longer. By which I mean a month maximum. Our injuries are not helping.

MY mate said that his uncles daughters nephews friend know someone who knows the name of someone who knows BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH!!!!!!!

Neither is the pathetically poor discipline.

Which is firmly the job of the manager, of course.

yeah fair enough dazza, but i dont want to name names so thats how i had to put it.

Quite - a serious of key reds, not just this season but at the end of last.

A very good friend of mine connected to Rushden and Diamonds (and Barton Cobbler knows him too and may have heard the same thing in the Stags last night) said that Justin Edinburgh did not go for the Lincoln job and believes he is being lined up to be the next Cobblers manager.  Ordinarily I'd have put this in the rumour bucket, but this is the same person who told me that Jackman was going back to Gillingham even before we were relegated and that Gary Mulligan was signing for us weeks before his name was even mentioned.

Assuming you're right, Insider, why on earth should we expect JE to be any more successful with this lot than the current management?

Er, because he might be a better manager?

Because he's a far superior man-manager, has an enviable record with extremely limited finances and has very good contacts a lot bloody closer than Middlesbrough.

On a slightly different note.  How come Sammo with all his so called contacts missed out on Mark Randall who has just signed a 3 month loan deal with Rotherham?  We have suck weakness all over the pitch, he'd have been a useful addition and he's from here and been on our books (and that would have allowed Gilligan to have his operation).  Meanwhile, I also saw that Karl Darlow was on the subs bench for Forest yesterday.  He was at Villa, unhappy there and from Northampton wanted to sign for the Cobblers, but we ummed and aahed about offering him a contract, despite all our goalkeeeping woes.  

If Edinburgh leaves R&D, I would expect it to be for a better job than the Cobblers one. What would the compensation cost for IS and MC? Probably more than the Carling Cup money. Madness. How many managers have we had since DC arrived at the club in December 2002?

The madness was giving them a 3 year contract!

Mark Randall would of been perfect signing, he was a regualar when on loan at dongs and always seemed to play well. He lives in MK, yet another potential good signing MISSED

Why does he give them contracts of 3 years?

The last three have failed to get anywhere near his targets for the season.  In fact his target in 2008/2009 was to reach the playoffs, Gray couldn't have been any further off target with that one!!!!  And STILL he got the chance to build a side to "challenge for automatic promotion" from League 2 last year........  Whoops.

This season's target certainly wasn't phaffing about in the bottom half of the table.

do you mean relegation zone?

I don't think that was Cardoza's target either.

Yeah, I once heard it rumoured that, when football clubs aren't doing very well, the manager sometimes loses his job. Brilliant!

JE won't come to us as manager, almost a sideways step, thats how far we are falling here.

Yeah he would.

It's just rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. What I'll do though is change Sammo's name to the new managers on here so that all of these threads are still valid in 12 months time

It doesn't mean that Cardoza has to pay up the full 3 years or anything approaching it.

Lawrie Sanchez was on Radio 5 live fairly recently talking about the plight of managers and it appears that if Sammo and Crosby were to be sacked they'd be lucky to walk away with a year's worth of wages let alone the remaining balance on the 3 years.

Basically - the length of contract is a huge red herring.

In a nutshell

Sammo's future is clearly hanging by a thread.  Gillingham or Lincoln is more likely to be the deciding game.  There are times when you are relieved if not happy when the manager is shown the door but if this happens to Sammo it will be a sad day for us all.

why would a months grace make any difference, by then we could be out of all the cups & rooted to the bottom of the league,allso our injuries are nothing to do with where we are in the league.Steve you are starting to sound like the crap we get on BBC Northampton about how unlucky the team are ect

I honestly think we should just sack him now. It's delaying the inevitable. This team is cascading down in terms of league position, confidence and now what appears to be actual ability and belief and it doesnt look like we're going to trip over and stop this rot anytime soon. It's fine having this idea of 'give Sammo cash in January and watch us shoot' but what if that doesnt work? We are well and truly, absolutely, 100% without a shadow of any sort of reasonable or otherwise doubt f***ed.

We could find ourselves seriously adrift with a few more losses, have Barnet and Lincoln coming up, Hereford have turned their form around (with a new manager, I might add). We're already 2 behind Barnet, could increase dramatically unless we find a win somewhere.
And before someone says Lincoln and Barnet are winnable, we thought the same about Macc, Cheltenham and Hereford and sunk without a trace in all three.

Never thought Sammo was the right man for the job, looks like I was right.

Think I'll be seeking confirmation from my best mates wife's brother who is a coach at Peterborough!

Who knows what the chairman is thinking.

All this justin edinburgh talk reminds me of the mark cooper talk last time, which turned out to be b*llocks.

On another note, with what Tyler said, Stop delaying the envetiable and sack sammo, if there is money to spend in january, get someone in so that he has a good 6-8 weeks to be around the team and judge them, before the money we have is wasted!!

There's enough people on here making all sorts of suggestions who should replace Sammo, if he does go.

Who would you appoint as manager?

What talk?  We, the fans wanted him - there was never any rumors he would come here.....

Justin Edinburgh if we could get him. Of the currently unemployed managers, Martin Allen or Paul Ince (preferably the latter although his wage demands might be a sticking point). But hopefully we'll start picking up the results soon and it won't come to that.

why would edinburgh come here? its like our manager going to p*sh

Whoever asks for the least money.

Perhaps Cardoza could do one of those reverse auction things and ask applicants to write down their salary requirements. The lowest individual bid gets the job...

Would Edinburgh actually come here? It's like Calderwood going to p*sh instead of Forest

The operative words being "if we could get him"...

me? i have done well on football manager, always managed to get cobblers into the prem. i know i have no actual league experience but i can always show cardozza my football manager cv :D

We are bottom of the league. If it was down to team selection only you coudlnt do much worse

Fenwick

Hope Powell

This team is cascading down in terms of league position...

I can absolutely promise you that the cascading has stopped for the rest of the season. You heard it here first.

Only one question needs to be asked at the interview....

Would you pick Ryan Gilligan?

 ;D

I back Gilligan more than most but f*** me he has been dire lately

Billy Rodaway (sp?)

Saw him at Old Orleans the other week...

Gordon Strachan

Yep, he's been struggling. It's a shame Waddleburn isn't professional enough to keep himself fit.

Unless there is money made available - which seems unlikely - what will be gained by changing the manager?

If you seriously need this answering, you're not half sharp.

From the Forest Green Rovers website:

"Manager Nick Angel brings Northampton Town to The New Lawn with the fixture due to be played week ending the 6th/7th November"

Do they know something we don't??

He's already at the club...  Ladies and gentlemen i give you Bobby Gould.

You can **** right off  ;)

Atkins for old times sake!

Well mate, we'll agree to disagree. If league results don't come within the month, though, then I'm sure we'd all agree that whatever is decided if the current management gets ditched is that from December to the end of the season is enough time for anyone new to get enough points for safety. Kevan Broadhurst managed it on no money and no resources. Then of course we sacked him!
The worry is that, whatever happens, it'll just be more of the same system that ends up in the sacking of another manager. The answer to it is not around at the moment, I don 't know of a club which operates a different system. Maybe we're even stuck with it. You obviously can't select a team by committee, neither can you decide tactics that way. And in the end, a committee can't decide which players to buy. BUT I do wonder whether clubs could have a wider board of people whose job is to support the management team and who would be able to speak frankly and be heard by open-minded manager(s).
If we really did have an open discussion between players and management the other week then at least something has been tried, but even then, many players are of the attitude that they'll contribute as little as possible until their ass gets regularly kicked.
We have a dedicated fitness coach, which theoretically is a great step in the right direction, but in most of our recent games we have been out-run by fitter-looking teams. Our second half at Oxford was a disgrace, they were so much quicker to the ball than us. I'm at a loss, all I know is that the manager-merry-go-round is driving me nuts.

When have I said we're unlucky? Hardly ever. Our league position reflects perfectly the paucity of our play.

On the point of injuries, they have to be a massive contributor to our woes; if you run through our list of 1st XI squad, there are hardly any who haven't been afflicted. Pull up the list on the official club site and run through it. There's only about half-a-dozen who haven't been recently injured.

i wonder if Steve guinan would apply for the job!!!!

If it gets him off the playing budget, give him the job!!!!!

Oh I don't know Steve - I can think of a few. Clubs who appoint managers based on ability rather than sentiment; clubs who conduct a proper selection process with interviews and consultations rather than just appointing the backroom guy who's already on the payroll; clubs who might think twice about giving the job to a caretaker manager who's just overseen a horrendous run of results.

You don't need to 'select a team by commitee' as you put it. You just need a guy in charge who knows what he's doing. You don't need to enter the 'managerial merry-go-round' every season if you appoint the right guy in the first place.

The problem is the appointment in the first place. Not once has Cardoza employed a manager without baggage or a terrible record. Not once has he given the job to a manager with a good record of winning football matches. As such, when the team starts to struggle many fans are very quick to blame the manager and want him sacked. Sammo has done nothing since late March to suggest he has what it takes to be a decent manager (Liverpool excepted) and in most cases is producing the type of results that were feared on him getting the job full time.

Justin Edinborough. Manages a local team with no money and has proved in the last 18 months to be an excellent manager. He has great contacts, he's young. He's played at the highest level. And he's on the up. He would not cost much in wages (we could certainly afford him if Diamonds can!), maybe we would have to pay compensation but it would be a price worth paying. He is the kind of manager we should be looking to bring here, on a 3 year odd contract and let him build something. He's worked his apprenticeship at Diamonds, we can provide him with his next step up the ladder. He would re-galvanise the support, I mean who would be against him? Sammo didn't stand much of a chance because as soon as he hit a bad patch 75% of us are thinking "I knew this would happen".

Back to Sammo. I would let him have this week and re-evaluate the situation next Sunday. If we produce another Oxford/Hereford/Shrewsbury/Macclesfield etc then Im sorry but its time to go. He deserves Tuesday and a crack at getting us to the quarter finals, it would be disrespectful to the man to relieve him of his duties before then. And then I guess you have to give him Saturday. I hope we win and he buys himself some more time, but I cannot help but think its delaying the inevitable.

We are where we are. Undoubtedly it will cost a large sum of money to get rid of both Sammo and Crosby and bring in their replacements. Probably circa 200k - a complete and utter guess but when you think about it is surely going to run into 6 figures. So Cardoza isn't going to make the decision as perhaps as quick as we all would that don't have to foot the bill. The fact that they have 3 year contracts makes this option that much harder to make as well. But again the same people on here who were celebrating the announcement of these long deals earlier this year are now saying Cardoza was stupid to award them. I must admit to thinking around Febuary/March time that we really had found ourselves a decent manager and that I had been very wrong to initially think otherwise. But Sammo's lack of contacts meant a summer of struggle with regards to building a team capable of getting decent results and that I fear has been his biggest downfall. Not knowing enough people who can help him out. Tactics wise, every manager gets questions. From the England manager to the manager of your kids football team. I can live with that, we all see a match differently. Venting our frustrations during the course of a game or on here is what its all about, but I can guarantee that the next manager will make bizaar substitutions and will probably play an unfit and woefully out of form Gilligan, as well as recruiting someone onto his backroom staff who will be perceived as being a waste of money. But at the end of the day, its all about winning and we are not doing that. And we don't remotely look like we are going to start anytime soon.

Well as I was the author of the original Sammo or new broom thread I thought that I might as well start a new one!  ;D

Lets see what the hotelender's want. No spin. Unlike this time last year Im pretty cool about things, not overly stressed about the situation. Im prepared to give the bloke another week. So thats the way I've voted. And before I get asked why by somebody, I have considered the whole picture. The costs involved, the respect, Ipswich match this week etc. Heart versus head.

I hope he wins this battle, I really do. Good luck Sammo.

I voted 'wait until after Gillingham' for the following reason:

the guy has earned himself the chance to have a crack at Ipswich, the form we're in is dreadful but he lead us to this point and he deserves this game. I don't think we'll win, but he's earned the chance to give it a go. Re: Gillingham, it can be his last chance in front of the home crowd. If we lose, we have Lincoln next week and looking at their league position that must be seen as a must win, therefore we should get a new manager in right after the Gills game to give him a week to prepare.

My personal opinion, but I can also see the justification in a couple of the other options too.

Lincoln is a week Tuesday ???

I have voted for after the gillingham game. Sammo deserves a crack at ipswich but if we lose to gillingham then it could be curtains for him (especially as they haven't won away for like 2 years).

 :o My mistake, thought it was saturday, if I could change to 'after Ipswich' I would then :-\

Can't possibly answer the question as it depends upon the results of the games mentioned.

I've said give it a few weeks: We've got Gillingham (h), Lincoln (a), Port Vale (h), Barnet (a) and Rotherham (a) before the end of November. If Sammo gets less than 9 points from that little lot, show him the door. I think he could build something here if given time but it depends how much time we can afford to give him: if we're deep in the relegation mire by the end of November we can't take the risk of plummeting into the Conference as part of his learning curve, especially as we would lose the likes of Thornton, McKenzie etc, who any future promotion-challenging team would be built around.

I think he'll go this week. Probably after the Ipswich game barring another unlikely result.

Of the options mentioned Justin Edinburgh looks the best from the realistic options.

Jesus Christ, if the new bloke got 9 points "from that little lot" I'd be happy.

and if we only get one or two points or worse. Where does that leave us?

Early signs are that the majority are still wanting him to be given a little more time. If we can get the figure of voters to around the 100 mark today, then that will give us a good cross section of the support - and will tell DC what we all feel.

Marvo...no need to sit on the fence mate, I think your stance is clearly to give him a few weeks. Which could be two weeks, 3 weeks or even longer. Dependent on the results in the meantime. Because if we were to lose this Saturday then there is an option for that!

For me though, it isn't just about results. If we were to lose 1-0 versus Gills through a dodgy penalty but hit the post 5 times and genuinely be unlucky then I would think differently. But my biggest concern is we don't actually look like winning...the last time we did was against Chesterfield.

The majority seem to be saying he should go in the next week.

Straw polls can be dangereous things.  On BBC radio Northampton before the Oxford game Tim O said he had asked a cross section of Cobblers fans for their views and he reported that most were in favour of giving Sammo time, the implication being longer than being mooted on this board.  So it raises the question of how representative are 100 posters on this board.  We could be a "noisy" minority. 

So a new manager automatically means an improvement in results? In that case, take one on for a month and get another for the following month. Champions. It's not rocket science.

Trevor Gould?

In our case, it's difficult to see how they could get any worse. The club record is 7 defeats on the spin.

I'm not sitting on the fence, I'd give him the Ipswich game but then say goodbye UNLESS we were to win of course which obviously changes the entire picture. Can you imagine, quarter-finals of the League Cup and we then sack the manager?

I really like Sammo (as a bloke) but the Gilligan thing is doing my head in!

Fine. So the new man gets 2 wins with the same players. Get rid of him and the next will get - say - 3 or 4. By the time we get the 6th we'll be in the play-offs.

Well it's going to be a lot easier to stay in this league as opposed to gaining promotion from the Blue Square, but losing is habit forming and we have a nasty habit.

Our current form added to ridiculous disciplinary conduct clearly points to a new Management team being required as as possible....but in fairness Sammo deserves to have a pop at the Tractor Boys.

What happens then, as to another prospective disastrous appointment by DC is anybodies guess....with any hope he is surely already searching through the the leagues, top non- leagues and those out of work from the  League Managers Association as we speak...and this time take some expert advice, as with CC /JD, please. The cheap option often turns out to be very expensive [ who's idea was it to give 3 year contracts....3 months is a long time in football...things change as we know (the heroics at Liverpool seem like a dream now)].If and when a new man is appointed he clearly needs time to assess the players and be poised for action in the January transfer window and  hopefully use his contacts in the game for quality loanees, that can make such a difference at this level. All of this is obvious to all of us.

Action must be already well under way as we speak ....especially if the target manager is not immediately available. The clock is ticking.

Agreed!

Terry Angus for his obvious passion for the club - who can forget his reaction when Osman scored that penalty at Anfield  ;D 

I think he should go after the Ipswich game. He achieved a fantastic result against Liverpool, and he deserves a crack at the next round. It would be nice to give him a proper send-off.

However, I think we've all seen enough to know that he's not the long term answer. Our recent run of defeats is worryingly reminiscent of the downward spiral which ensued after the Barnet game last year: shipping two or three goals every game, makeshift defence changing every week etc. In fact its been even worse than that. I see no signs of Sammo improving as a manager or learning from his mistakes.

I think Sammo and Crosby should both go after the Ipswich game, with Parrish taking over as a (temporary!) caretaker whilst a rigorous selection process is put in place to find a successor. Edinburgh would be my ideal candidate. He's done very well with the Dims on a limited budget, knows his way around the lower leagues and must have some fairly good contacts from his Spurs/Portsmouth day. DC should be moving heaven and earth to bring in someone of that quality.

I concur.

I have voted for after the gilligham match, end of the month. If the poor form continues don't think we can continue to wait until later.

Mad dog martin allen would at least keep us out of the conference and would at least give everyone a kick up the ...

What is Angus doing? Journalism, or is he working for the club already?

It doesn't really matter does it? I've absolutley no confidence in anybody better being brought in.

Fair point.

Miserable f***ing times.

Don't look at the league table.

f***.

Haven't read the whole thread but why would you sack a managed for losing a game when you are the underdog?  Ipswich for example!

Mark. We are the underdog in every game we play, what with being 91st out of 92 and all that

It would make no sense to sack the manager after a cup defeat against a championship side. No sense at all. Either you do it now or wait till after Gillingham.

Not to mention the only team below us came back from 3-0 down and beat us.

It would make heaps of f***ing sense to sack him after Ipswic. That'd make it 6 defeats on the bounce and i'm not usre if i can face sitting through number 7 at the weekend against a team who havent won away since the day we were relegated. How long can we afford to sit back and say 'we cant do it yet' it has to be done. Sacking Sammo obviously wont be an easy thing to do but its for the best

For the best? Do you have a crystal ball? What if we get someone equally incompetent and - worse still - doesn't care about the club. No one can accuse Sammo of not caring.

He cares too much, that is part of the problem imo. As silly as that sounds.

Paisley, Shankly...did they care too much? I don't think you can care too much.

I think you can.

Thats the beauty of message boards, differing opinions can be aired  :D

Agree in principle, but if Ipswich absolutely rip us apart and win 4 or 5 nil then i think that may be just cause.

Of course we can disagree but explain how one can care too much, please. Are you suggesting that you lose any sense of objectivity if you love something or someone too much? That it's better not to care (too much)?

Sure...

Just feel that sometimes if people care too much then it can affect there train of thought as such, let feelings cloud their judgement, look at Sammo's touchline antics...too much passion?

It's an interesting debate and I'm not sure where the truth lies.

I am. DustCobb is right.

I could have guessed there was a good chance of Sammo getting sacked after Gillingham.

Considering his record in the cup, it makes sense (in a way) to keep him until after Ipswich. Barring something miraculous over the next few weeks, another unlikely cup victory will simply delay the inevitable.

I am actually gutted for him but think he will remain a cobblers legend, providing he goes sooner rather than later and doesnt stay long enough to contribute any further toward a relegation struggle.

If DC had any business sense, youd have thought the 3 year contracts contained a get out clause for a poor run of results etc.

Then you're a mug for thinking Sammo cares anymore than any of the top most successful managers in the country.

The conclusion of clicking on 'new replies to your posts'.....a month is a long time in football.

Caring too much is a problem if it affects judgement. Head must rule heart in decision making in a professional capacity. Leave the heart felt decisions for personal matters or for football fans not football employees.

The problem is that he cares to much? Don’t be so wet. 

I’d say that the problems are far more fundamental like poor organisation, bad man management, rubbish tactics and team selections.

He must care for gilligan too much, hence him playing every week despite very poor form

I'm with Tel...


Come on Sammo, your legendary status hasn't been tainted round my way mate.

Sammo's still a Cobblers legend to me and always will be.However, that doesn't hide the fact that he's a crap manager.

People were eulogising about the management at Easter. What has gone wrong since then? Bayo's departure? Key injuries? An inspirational leader surely does not become a dire one in a matter of a few months.

Far too many atrocious decisions in a short space of time.

The anti-Gilligan tirades leave me cold. The guy scored lots of goals for us last season and is playing through pain now, having volunteered to put off his operation. He turned down better offers elsewhere to re-sign for us. If you've seen him interviewed, he's got a brain, which puts him ahead of most sportsmen.

If he did, then this can't be true:

I don't have a problem with Gilligan on a personal level. He's a footballer and he wants to play as often as possible. What bothers me is Sammo's continual decision to select an unfit, underperforming player when there are better options (Wedderburn, Jacobs etc) in the squad.

Jacobs isn't a central midfielder and Wedderburn gets slagged off on this forum for being out of shape.

With me, its not an anti-Gilligan thing. Its an anti-why the fcuk is he being picked at the moment because he is absolutely woeful!

I like Gilligan and have defended his corner on numerous occasions in the past. But making him captain and picking him every week currently is one of the most ridiculous situations I can recall a Cobblers manager putting us in for as long as I can remember...with him in the team we are effectively playing with 10 men.

Get him operated on and pick someone else in the meantime to play there instead.

I'm not anti-gilligan at all, in fact i would say i'm a fan of his but the fact is he has been very very poor this season and has not scored 1 goal yet and has not looked like scoring, by last years standard he should have at least 2 goals in his 11 games he's played this season.

It's quite easy to see that his injury is to blame for this poor form as he's not going into tackles or pushing up like we know he can.

The one person to blame is Sammo, why the hell he can't see that playing an unfit midfielder is not helping the cause i do not know, as much as i like gilly, he's not that good that we can live without him for 8-12 weeks especially given his crap form.

Sammo should stop playing the lad and let him go and have his op and get fit for the back end of the season. This is just another example of his poor decision making and man management.

Same as everyone else really, Gilligan is actually a nice fella, one with his head screwed on aswell. However he seems to have become almost undroppable!

My problem with the Gilligan situation is Sammo's insistance to play him with Osman as a second holding midfielder. I prefer Osman as the holding midfielder with Davis and Jacobs wide with Thornton central in front of Osman.With Hall as the left back we might start playing players in their best position instead of Sammo's patched up formation...........although Dunn might be the tall centre forward option tomorrow!!!

I think that Sammo's logic is probably as follows: RG is our longest-serving player, is a potential goalscorer, he comes from a footballing family and has a sound knowledge of the game. Unfortunately, his injury seems to be making him less mobile so maybe that op needs to take place sooner rather than later.

Nail on head. It's no coincidence that during our decent run last season Sammo actually played players in their proper positions.

Was it Brian Clough who said football is a simple game? Play players in their correct positions and you're halfway there?

That logic could have been the case 2 months ago. But now? He's about as much as a potential goalscorer as Guinan, and that is saying something!

I don't think Sammo has any logic, hence why were in our current situation. You can see by the number of posts that it plain to see he needs dropping due to poor form and injury (not because we dont like him) by everybody apart from sammo.

If gilly had the op back at the start of sept he'd be  well on the way to recovery by now and maybe we'd be higher up the league

Sorry to put a depressing slant on this but why would Edinburgh come to us? Just looked at the Conference table and the Diamonds have won 4 of their last 5 games (drawn the other) and just beaten Kettering to get into the 1st Round of the FAC. They're clearly on the up and are 6th in the table. Would he really want to come here, to a team that are 23rd in League Two when he's clearly got something going down there? There are only 7 places between us at the moment and I'm no manager but I'm guessing it's nicer to manage a team sat 6th in the league than a team 23rd in the league. :(

Now I accept that I wasn't there last week and therefore didn't have to sit through it, but I would also have taken Leon off at that stage if he had taken a knock.

If your injury prone striker had just got a hattrick and had taken a knock which could have seen him out of the next game if not protected, would you want to protect him?

If you were three up against the bottom club and had an out of form striker on the bench who had a good chance of getting a confidence goal which could spark his season, would you try it?

As for the rolling over and letting the aforementioned bottom club get four goals back and the aforementioned out of form striker not getting that crucial confidence goal, I have no answers.

I still love Sammo and really hope that he leads us to victory tomorrow night and Saturday and that the rest of the season comes good.

Even if it doesn't, he remains one of my favourite Cobblers legends.  He was there when I cried at Wembley, he was there when Boy Bingers cried at Anfield.

And another thought, would he have had more success with players who have the same passion as him, not these mercenaries who think they are God's gift despite the fact that they are only playing Division Four football.  When Sammo was playing, you had respect for the players that they would do their best and took a pride in their club.  You got the sense that they were hurt by defeat.  Not ending up thinking that they would be out on the piss that evening playing on their (minor) celebrity status.  The only one who I have got any real respect for is Holty.  I get the impression that he would roll his sleeves up and get on with it, whereas too many others' heads go down.  I might let Jacobs off as he is young and could still choose the right path, but if he becomes a tosser then he can forget it as well.  Scottie was probably the last one who I felt put the club first.  Before that there were more, but in the future there are going to be fewer and fewer.  If anything is going to drive me away from the game, it is this. 

I can forgive bad results and God knows we've had a few over the years, but lack of commitment, that is unforgivable.

He'd be here like a shot. We're a League club, Diamonds aint, nor will they ever be again. Edinborough is working miracles over there, it can't last, he hasn't got the resources. He knows that!

Football league vs non league
1200 ish vs 4500 attendances
Relatively good budget in comparison.

Mmmm why would he ?

I don't know what you're refering to but it certainly wasn't a post I made. Maybe you're the mug?

Bear in mind also the fantastic facilities at Nene Park, gym, training pitches etc. I'd swap it for Sixfields tomorrow.

Darlington have fantastic facilities.
The facilities at RDFC worked well during their brief spell as a league club.
 

What the f*** is this! A sensible, not even half funny post from Bingers?! ;D

I'm desperate for Sammo to turn this around.  He's been through it all with us over the years and as far as I'm concerned he's as much (if not more) a Cobbler as anyone sitting in the stands. When he was first in the running for the job I was in two minds; on the one hand he deserved his chance and I wanted him to get the job and do well.  On the other, I was kind of dreading us ending up in the situation we are starting to find ourselves in and him having to leave under a cloud.

Here's hoping he gets us back up and running again, starting tomorrow at Ipswich. C'mon, Sammo!!

I would love to see Terry Angus involved somewhere in the club.

Listening to him on the radio he does seem to see things that if pointed out to a Manager could be put right.

cheryl cole talks a lot of sense. politically conscious with a working class background. fully aware of contrasting musical genres. really digs wayne from the flaming lips. has a vague idea of the off-side rule. knows how to fire up an absinthe on team building day. might drop her shorts...i don't know.

Are you suggesting that I manage as much as half funny usually?  Anyway, this is no laughing matter.

Right, off t' hotel bar to watch Gabor get the winner against Leeds, which will be a laughing matter, just its a pity that its half term, so I can't wind up quite as many Leeds fans.

In three Sunday papers he was rated as our best player alongside MacKenzie!!  ;D

Love the guy...but that's the problem..going down Sentiment Avenue again...Mr. Angus totally untried at any level!

So is Cheryl Cole.  Given the two, I'd take Cheryl, but probably choose Terry as manager.

I think they did that last time  ;)

I really, really hope that Sammo turns this round.  There would absolutely no pleasure in seeing him go. 

my unrealistic option would be Alan Pardew but we'd have no chance

None at all. He will always be a legend.
Maybe the problem is that in every other country managers require all their coaching badges, man-management courses and managerial skills courses etc. before they are qualified. Here anyone can become a manager, even with no experience. At times I sense that Sammo's man-management is a bit crude.

That would be your unrealistic option? Mine would be Jose Mourinho.

Pardew is dire and looks about as much fun as a Croydon librarian. I'd be in favour of taking a massive risk by doing what Kettering have just done: appointing someone unknown from non-league football. The last time we did it - Graham Carr - it brought us a hungry manager and the two best players to grace our club in the last thirty years.

A possible angle indeed...not only did it come up trumps with  Graham et al but it also worked with Peter Morris as assistant......when we got the legend that is 'Larry' Grayson & even Trott-y ( who was a lot people's hero).
If not as a Manager then as an Assistant ...if someone talented, hungry and keen would come ?

Non-league is an undervalued option. Look at how players such as Westcarr have thrived. Of Carr's non-league finds, McGoldrick - who I don't think was THAT great - went on to Arsenal and the 1994 World Cup Finals, Morley at West Ham in the PL, Hill moved to the top flight as well. Even Wilcox and Gilbert impressed in the second tier of league football. These players cost peanuts for NTFC and were probably paid in the same currency.

We took a risk with sammo and it hasnt worked. The last time we took a risk and it paid off was with Calderwood. Now is the time for a proven manager to come in whos going to give the players a proper kick up the yaris but actually have some tactical knowledge. What Pardew did with reading wasnt really boring was it?!

A 'proven manager' who is 'out of work'; isn't that an oxymoron?

DC made a comment - in the Chron - before the Hereford match that if we lost to the league's bottom side he would be forced to take action. We haven't heard from him since.

He's still in the emergency board meeting  ::)

There's no room for sentiment in business.It's like the old chap who used to work for me who lost his fingers in a strimmer accident.Even though he'd worked for me for over 15 years, he couldn't do his job to the standard required, and had to go.

I'm sure you are a caring boss, Ted. Mind you, shouldn't he have sued you for the strimmer incident?

No, it was in his own garden and in his own time.Besides, I've never entertained the compensation culture.

You probably worked him so hard, on bare minmum wages, that he was forced to do his own garden in the dark at midnight. Must be grounds for a claim.

This is a good point. Does anyone know if Sammo has any coaching badges to his name?

Surely he could have used his other hand to pleasure you? !!  ;D ;D

Its not business, its football.  There is loads of room for sentiment, thats why we're all Cobblers supporters.  That's why we'll hark on about the Liverpool until I lose my teeth and I become incontinent.

Gotta be honest bingers, i think a few of us will also talk about the game after the end of next June too ;)

Supporting the Cobblers is ALL about sentiment. It has nothing to do with business, and I sometimes wonder if it has anything to do with results either. It's pure blind love. Call it a curse if you like, but it is devotion for a few thousand of us.

I'm not ready to be blaming Sammo for everything yet. I find his subs really strange sometimes and don't agree with them but the blame has to lay with the players. They looked like they couldn't be bothered tonight. It is such a shame that in football the players don't get the boot when they are not up to the job it always falls on the manager.

We have to bear in mind that we don't see the players in training; we don't know which ones are carrying knocks etc. Booing the decision to take off McKenzie v Hereford, for example: no manager would have taken him off unless it was necessary.

No doubt that Sammo will always be a legend.....

But we have now lost 6 games in a row, last time that happened was 2003 when we got relegated under Martin Wilkinson.

C'mon Sammo get into the players minds, turn them into world beaters.  ;D

Necessary??? We were 3-0 up against the Leagues bottom team, into the second half, McKenzie gets a slight knock, gets taken off as a precaution..... not necessarily necessary!! I would add though, in Sammos defence on that one that you couldnt have forseen what happened in the next 20 minutes or so!

This Saturday/Tuesday excuse though..........why not just come out an say I've signed another crock??!! Not a bad crock I'll give you that, but a crock all the same!

My dad suggested Malcolm Crosby!   ;D

I believe I read somewhere on here that the club record for consecutive defeats was 7. If we match that on Saturday, then irrespective of how we feel about the bloke, a change has to be made. This can't go on. We have some decent players in our team, but it's all a bit of a shambles right now.

It has to be done before it's too late. I'd love to see him prove the doubters wrong, but tonight's throwing on of Holt up front was what I saw as (almost) the last throw of a desperate man. I remember Gray doing the same thing with that useless bald git we had on loan from Fulham (Watts?) - that didn't work either.

He's probably still trying to sign that striker we were promised too............. ::)

Even if we lose against Gillingham the apologists will still defend him on the grounds that we'll be tired after our midweek exertions, and that our big pitch works against us when we're tired.  Problem now is that prospective loanees are turning us down because of our position in the bottom two.  We're not just spiralling downwards, we're in a nosedive.

Or he could be helping out on the phone with some of those "thousands of phonecalls" we made looking for defensive cover!

Hopefully though he's just going through the balance sheet, adding tonights cut to the income section, making our break-even figures look even better for when he puts the club up for sale....please!!

One more game. He'll have McKenzie, Beckwith and Johnson back, plus any loanee he might be able to bring in and we're playing Gilligham who haven't won away since Moses cames down from the mountain. Lose this one Sammo and I can't see how anybody will be able to argue your case.

There's a reason after over 100 years the club record is 7 defeats on the trot, even in our darkest hours we never exceeded that benchmark. You can complain about everything from the Chairman to the puddle but the buck has to stop with the manager. Don't try and tell me that Sammo's job has been harder than the likes of Phil Chard when almost all the players were shown the door midseason, or the infamous committee or when McRitchie was doing his best to wipe us off the face of the earth or even when we were collecting small change in buckets . Even in all those horrific times we never had a record like this, six defeats conceeding 15 goals in the process.

Sentiment has no place in this.....if wasn't for that stupid 3 year double contract they would both be gone.

Losing is habit forming ....we are out of control...in a head long spiral.

Stop it before it is too late.

The players are at fault but it is the managers job to manage them,so the buck stops there.

That bloody puddle has a lot to answer for.  Redevelopment would be complete by now if it wasn't for that bloody puddle.  We'd have beaten Grimsby if it wasn't that bloody puddle.  And we'd have kept Adcock and Barnes.  And we'd never have been relegated from the old First Division.  I could go on.

I miss the puddle, bring back the puddle please God, cheers.

You got this one right then?  ;D

There was a large puddle in the coach park at Ipswich yesterday for any puddle lovers.

I'm glad the puddle has made an away trip, thats the sign of a true puddle.

I hate to think how premature most of you are in bed...

;D ;D ;D

Never make it as far as the bed.  :-[

When he said 'coaches' I think he must have meant one of Geoff Amos'.

How would a coach know if they're going to be sacked. I don't think even DC knows what hes doing at the moment so to have a memeber of the coaching staff knowing before him is unlikely. To be fair, I can't even see him walking after the Gillingham game come what may, until the fans are chanting for him to get out I don't think DC will make a decision. How can he sack a manager that the fans sing the name of every week?

One minute the fans know f*** all and should be ignored. The next chairman are taking our thoughts into consideration. I wish people would make their minds up.

If he had a half empty stadium of people chanting 'Sammo Out' on Saturday he'll be more likely to be gone on Monday, agree or not?

I agree but that doesn't show strong leadership, in fact excatly the opposite, making a decision to placate the fans. Cardoza should make his decision on his own terms but from what I can see I think Sammo is leaving him little choice.

Do remember, this was the man who took a summer and a few games to sack a manager who got a team which should have NEVER been relegated, relegated.

I don't think about how any of you lot are like in bed.

Sorry, that's with the exception of Bexxy when she had those loooooonnnnnngggggggg pair of legs as an avatar on the old site. ;)

Nice one, Tyler.

If the goalkeeping doesn't work it (not that big an "if" really) you can always fall back on being a comedian. :-*

Filthy!  :o

Tell me about it. Unfortunately he was swayed by supporters who kept saying that the useless and inept Gray should be given more time. De ja vu?

Because

A: He clearly doesn't take a blind bit of notice about what the fans think, or
    what players we wanna see etc

B: Because no decent manager is gonna want to come here and manage
     a mediocre squad with the likes of Alistair Slowe

C. It'll take too long for a new manger to make a significant change.

So we may aswell just get behind him and the team for Saturday

If you want a constructive argument about the way the team is performing it goes way beyond Sammo

I always get behind the team - the trouble is getting others to join in!

Ahhh. the old "surrender to your fate" ploy, didn't it work well in the case of Stuart gray?

"He clearly doesn't take a blind bit of notice about what the fans think, or what players we wanna see etc"
No self-respecting manager does.

"It'll take too long for a new manger to make a significant change"

Er, actually there's quite a lot of historical precendent to suggest that changing managers in October/November can reverse a side's fortunes.

You sound like the bloke who sticks with his Mrs who wont go near him and who's ugly because he's too scared that he might end up on his own and have to cook his dinner as well!

Hey, leave Bingers out of it!!!

Criticising a manager for 'slagging players off' seems bizarre to me. Ferguson described his keeper's blunder the other week as a primary pupil's error, Clough was always doing it, yet when Sampson criticised Harris after Shrewsbury he actually blamed himself, saying that the guy wasn't quite ready yet. He is quick to praise, something he has often done with Davis this season and with Thornton praises him when he has done well but pointing out that the guy needs to be more consistent. I'm not aware of any manager who does not criticise individual players in public. Yes, in an ideal world these things would stay in-house but we require managers to talk at post-match conferences when they have not had time to chew the fat and their frustrations inevitably come out.

Apologist.

I don't know why that word came to mind.

Exactly, you won't catch me making my own dinner.

Yorkshire blokes (even pretend ones like me) expect that when they get 'ome, tea is on t' table.  And there'll be trouble at t' mill if it 'ent.

Sorry, I'm not sure either.

I learn from the best :D

The players are 100 % behind Sammo. The Carling Cup adventure is over. It's league points that matter now.This group of players will show tomorrow how much they want Sammo to stay in charge ! Get your pennies on a win for the Cobblers

I hope they do. I really do. Come on you tossers, don't let it happen....

Hmm.  Didn't the Chron say that "Gilligan thinks the players are giving 100%"?  There's a bit of a difference there.  Sammo's treatment of some of the players this season suggest otherwise: Davis, Wedderburn, Thornton and now Holt.  Guinan can be considered in the same camp.  Hardly a resounding endorsement. 

If Only..........

It would be great if the performances of the players depended on the amount of passion they have for the club, and even better if they were able to turn it on and off at will.
The sad fact is that it's rather more footballing ability and consistency that counts, and it seems as if some of our lot don't have as much as we first thought.
They can play with as much passion as you like, it will only result in yellow cards and the odd red one, but it's only football skill and tactical nous that will win you games.

Be careful what you wish for!

Spot on. It's not all about passion and 'giving 100%'. A player can give 100% and run around like a headless chicken making reckless challenges every five minutes. I wouldn't put our poor results to a lack of effort at all. We keep losing because we lack organisation, consistency and guille.

What we need is to be more calm, professional and intelligent. Sammo has to start embodying these qualities himself.

You can add Seb Harris to that list.To throw him into central defence against the best team in the league away from home was naive in the extreme.

Just bumping this up, only to see if a few more people cast their vote/current stance.

I should of perhaps added 'after Lincoln' seeing as there is a 11 day gap then until the next league game.

On reflection, thats where Im at. After Lincoln. I will make my own judgement after Tuesday. We need to win at least 1 of the next 2 games, or at minimum draw them both. Basically we need to somehow put a halt to this terrible run of successive defeats. If we cant, then 11 days should be enough time for DC to find the right replacement and get him in place to start our recovery. I do not want a period of having a caretaker manager in charge of us for league matches; a new broom would be needed end of. I would let Andy Holt take charge of us for the FA Cup game if no body has come in by that point.

Im up for todays game. I actually think we will win. Looking forward to seeing Bayo's return as well.

1 point from the next two games and he's gone, 2 points and he might just get a stay of execution and anything more than that and you can tuck this thread away for a couple of weeks.However, I'm still of the extremely strong opinion that neither Sammo or the Cardozas are taking this club anywhere upwards.

Totally agree 100%. Im basing my thinking behind us not having to spend a large chunk of money we don't have on paying off the management duo until as late as possible. For me, if we are bottom of the league and becoming detached from the middle of the table a 3rd of the way through the season then realistically decisive action would need to be taken.

I also do not think anybody new coming in would get us promoted this season, so the benefits of us finishing 8th as opposed to 22nd are negligible. As long as we stay up I will be happy, given our current squad, form and circumstances. If Sammo shows during the next few days he can achieve that then I would rather the money be used to bring in additional players in January.

Clearly we can't keep losing games.

If we were to lose the next 2 or 3 then I think everyone knows something needs to happen.

That said, if we were to start picking up the odd win and showing signs of arresting the slide then I'd give him until after Xmas and then re-evaluate.

That is very much my stance as well. If he can get us a few points above the bottom 2 I will be happy. Well not happy but you know what I mean!! Any realistic chance of us getting promoted this season has gone - teams do not go from the relegation zone after a 3rd of the season into the promotion zone by the end of it. And particularly when the team has so many obvious weaknesses that are going to take at least another transfer window and probably a pre-season to properly resolve.

If we get to after Lincoln with anything other than 4 points then for me there is no way back for him.

2 or 3 points will buy him more time but really will just be a delaying tactic as im still not convinced he has what it takes but i would love him to prove me wrong.

For me the most telling game out of the next 3 in regards to what this team is all about will be Forest Green, that is a must win because if we can't beat a team 2nd from bottom in the BSQ then we might as well just turn the sixfields lights off  :(  and before anyone says it's the league thats more important, losing that game will kill any confidence off that this team has and will take an even bigger effort to come back from.

We have to win 1 of the next 2 league games, we have to.

The Forest Green Cup game is pretty irrelevant really, Forest Green will increase their effort like we did in the Carling Cup etc.

I'd definitely have Sammo in "the last chance saloon".

Probably something like 4 points from the next 2 games and 10 points from the next 5 league games prove he can turn things around.  That means loose today and he's gone!

If we are to change manager to try to avoid relegation then this should be done no later than early December for the new manager to make full use of the January Transfer Window.

If we keep Sammo for the rest of the season and get relegated then I my view the accountability must stand with DC.

Do we want the current cow or the one in the next field that happens to be greener?  8)

Depends if Daisy can start to produce some Milk this week or not  ;D  ;D

A green cow? Must be one of those concrete ones in Milton Keynes!

everyone is getting too carried away as if we do loss sammo then who says we are getting a better manager!?!?!

If we had gone out and got and got an experienced manager with a proven track record and given him the resources to be a success then yes call for his head.

Sammo was an unproven risk. This is his first job and was given a hugely reduced budget before his first full season in charge, which makes it very difficult to build your own side.

I'm not saying Sammo is the best manager out there and maybe not the best manager for us right now all i'm saying is that IF he goes then someone else unproven and cheap will be given a go and what's the difference!?!?!

Let's get behind the team and sammo and show our support because believe me if you think this is bad it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

i've been away for a while - has this happened yet? or was it more billy bulls***

Time for all the "Sammo out" brigade to stop the continual calls for his head. Don't get me wrong it is understandable and to a certain degree useful to let him know that this poor form can't continue.

However, Sammo has shown today that he can get it right and you wont find another person who is committed to the club as Ian.

If Sammo continues to preside over a losing team then he will get sacked but lets not go out of our way to help that decision. A club legend like him deserves better!

Let's forgive and forget those (including myself) that have come out with some outlandish criticism (inc the guy that wanted us to lose today!) and back Sammo in what is a tough job

Sammo Out

I agree with you in general that they need to stop, and i don't think they should have started in the first place.

1 win is 1 win, we need to keep it going....I wouldn't expect the calls for him to be sacked to stop...remember some people on here have nothing better to do ;-)

I was sat near him today and you could see the passion/desperation in his face.

You want your Sammo in
You want your Sammo out

In
out
In
out
Shake it all about.
Do the Sammo-Cokey and you turn around

That's what it's all about!

Maybe he had the s***s

;D

When Gilligan got injured and Leon was also carrying a knock, Sammo turned to Crozzer and mouthed something like what should we do...to which Crozzer obviously replied...call for the beloved almighty one that is Guinan.

Guinan was stripped down to come on in an instant but unfortunately his energy crashed as soon as he came onto the pitch  ;D

Good result today, but let's not get carried away. A loss on Tuesday and the pressure is back on. Fingers crossed we can start a good run of form now.

Gillingham are no mugs. The important thing is that we've shown we can mix it. Gotta support Sammo now!

Funny how it takes a Stoke fan to speak the truth. Well done today Sammo and team!

There'll be no amnesty from me, not after one win anyway.The same goes for Gilligan, who I thought had a decent game, but what we need is consistency throughout the team and and the management.However, I'm going to enjoy tonight, and Mrs Ted has informed me that she doesn't yet have a headache, so there may well be rumpy pumpy within the walls of chez Ted.

Good gritty performance today, something we havent done at all this season. Gilligan was my man of the match today, if only he played like that all the time. Hall and beckwith looked solid together. Some good signs that there is some light at the end of the tunnel.
But as a few have said a bad result against lincoln and a upset at forest green and fans (including myself) will be calling for his head once more.

Ted you're forgiven for your little outburst. Now if you could refrain from being such a rampant working class tory you'll find salvation  ;D

Glass half full? Glass half empty?

Completely agree with you but concentrate on the next game tomorrow. Today's for enjoying the glow of an all too rare victory  :afro

They're probably the worst side in the Football League away from home. Haven't won in almost 40 away games. But I agree, time to rally behind Sammo, this could be the first result of a turnaround or a false dawn, we've got to get behind him.

I reckon he's got at least until Barnet, even if we lose the next three.

If Sammo carries on making strange changes in the game it is going to bite him big time.

The difference might be that the new bloke is better? (or worse)

Have they been sacked yet?

Today was about the 1st time his changes made sense so not sure what you are on about.

Fairly good performance today, bit scratchy 2nd half but solid. Long long way to go.

Well-earned victory, hope Sammo enjoys his weekend. (Still reeling from the revelation that the Sun-reader Ted is married!)

I really don't understand why the fact that I'm married should surprise you.Among my many talents, I've been blessed with a certain charisma that drives women wild.Every day I inform Mrs Ted how fortunate she is in posessing a wonderful husband like me.When we first met she was apprehensive about getting into a serious relationship  because of my well known fondness for wine, women and song.However,I subsequently gave up singing and we've happily married for over 30 years.

Ted, do us a favour, go back to singing.

you will impress yr misus if you cud spel beter >:D

 ;D   You're my hero.

I can't get to games much anymore but watching BBC TEXT it seemed that we were tighter at the back and played a bit more direct, which I did say on here that we needed to, Sammo was honest enough to say that today's tactics may be a learning curve for him,you don't get that degree of honesty from many managers. let's all get behind him and the team. We may have made the first step to better things. COME ON COBBLERS1 

The crucial thing here is that Sammo seems to be learning from his mistakes. Putting Hall in at centre-back and moving Holt back out to the left is looking like a masterstroke based on today's performance, and not only do we now have Holt back on his favoured left-hand side and the head-on-a-stick option should we need it, we also have a composed, experienced player in the middle.

The substitutions Sammo made today were certainly effective in hanging on to the lead and all of them had a positive impact (even Guinan for once!). I don't think we can dispute that Sammo and Crosby got it tactically spot on today- if they can keep doing that, as well as instilling the right attitude and adding a couple of crucial signings (a midfield enforcer and a preferential option to Guinan on the bench) we can perhaps start working our way up this bloody table! Come On Tayn! 

We don't need anyone in midfield.

What he said. I thought midfield were excellent today

If we had the cash then yeah another midfielder would be welcome, however striker and defence must surely take preference, surely.

That text service is getting better and better every day.

The whole midfield 5, Osman and Gilligan in particular, panicked and gave away possession when put under pressure as we were hanging on to the points towards the end of the game. I still think we could do with an experienced, Ian Taylor-esque figure in the middle to grab the game by the scruff of the neck when we're behind and be the calming influence when we're protecting a lead. I'd prioritise that over a defender based on today's showing.

The problem is Taylor came from us from Championship and with Prem experience, not sure how many defensive midfielders there are of the calibre available on a free at the moment (if there are any at all)... and if they'd come to us... any names?

I thought Osman, Wedderburn and Gilligan were all fantastic. Gilligan didnt have the most exciting game of his life but i thought he passed well and got forward at the right times. A defender and striker is what we need

Think its a bit early for an amnesty ! Gillingham have not won in 34 away games,although there manager was disappointed not to be able to win at a place like Northampton !  Sammo has not improved in one game and has shown very poor managerial skills so far, and for me he has not shown any reason why he should have been appointed in the first place.

A good result against a team who haven't won away since the stone age, with some decent performances. Long way to go before any degree of success though. Anything less than top 7 is a season of failure (DC said himself) and we're still very much in the relegation picture.

Indeed, in fact a loss at Lincoln on Tuesday, and other results could see us back in 23rd or 24th. Sorry to be pessimistic  :P

They don't need to be of Taylor's calibre- we're not going for a title challenge here, we're trying to steer clear of relegation to the Conference. Seth Johnson is a name that springs to mind but I don't think he's played professional football for a couple of years now. Steven Glass perhaps?

Trust me nothing much has changed, it'll be back to the usual witch-hunt of players, management and ownership when if we lose to Lincoln.

they are away.

Agreed. You could see exactly why they haven't won away since the Roman invasion, particularly after they went behind.

The Three T's, Tyro, Ted & Tyler, all experiencing differing levels of romantic angsts  :P

Well I hope you enjoyed yourself Ted.

It was a good idea to get it in early (oh er), she'll obviously be far too busy tonight!  :)

Good God, some of the stuff I read on here makes me think I was at a totally different game to you lot!

Anyway, here goes. Im clearly on my own with this but hey ho. I thought the tactics yesterday were the worst under Sammo's stewardship. Yes we won, but I try to look beyond the result. I accept that we needed to grind out a result and I thought that between 15 - 45 minutes in the first half we played very well. Gillingham couldn't win a header at the back and as such could not deal with Holt. Even Billy was flicking the ball on! But the 2nd half? It was as bad as it was versus Hereford with the exception of our central defence keeping its shape. Because the rest of the team didn't. Where was Jacobs playing? Guinan ffs. 3 changes he made - last week at Oxford and Ipswich when we were losing he only made 1! I thought that all 3 substitutions made the team less effective, and obviously when Guinan came on we may as well have just gone down to 10 men.

We spent the last 20/25 minutes playing 4-5-1 AGAIN, that after a decent performance with 2 strikers on the pitch in the first half.

Whilst I am delighted that we won, I just felt that Sammo made it has hard for us as possible to achieve it. Some will argue that those changes were forced upon him, I would counter that by saying that under no circumstances should Guinan ever play for us. He's terrible END OF. Seb shouldn't of gone out on loan, he should be coming off of the bench if McKenzie takes a knock.

I agree with you to some extent, Drilling but we have to be pragmatic. It's pretty clear that Sammo will stay on as manager, barring another horrific run of results. I share your opinion that he is deeply flawed as a manager, but, as Jefferson Lake has intimated, the fact is that we simply can't afford to sack him and Crosby and replace them with a credible alternative. Given that this is the case, we have little choice but to support him.

As you say the performance yesterday:


However, defensive solidity is not to be sniffed at: along with having a prolific striker, it's what makes the difference at this level. Sammo has finally remembered that he's had an experienced, composed defender in the squad all along: Marcus Hall. Why he was benched for so long is beyond me. Sammo has tinkered far too much with the back four (you'd think he'd have learnt his lesson from the Kanyuka period last season), and this, for me, has been the real key to our downfall. 

If we can keep a settled back four and Leon stays fit, we might just be ok. This was the key for us last season: settled, solid back four plus prolific centre forward (Bayo). It won't be pretty, but at the moment I'd happily take mid-table mediocrity over a relegation dogfight.

Next summer, things can be reassessed. Guinan (and Hinton) will finally be off the wage bill, Purcell will hopefully be fit and we can start to achieve something in this league. Remember that it took Calderwood two and a bit seasons to get promoted; perhaps Sammo needs a similar ammount of time.





                                           



 

I thought we played like a team trying to end a run of awful results.Of course it wasn't pretty, it was never going to be.The important thing was that after the first ten minutes we never really looked like conceding.Billy looked mentally and physically drained, which is hardly surprising after playing lone man upfront for the majority of the season.I do agree with you regarding Guinan, he just isn't worth a place even on the bench.Why he couldn't have gone out on loan instead of Seb I will never know.Even if we had to pay a good portion of his wages, he's more use playing for someone else than playing for us.As for Sammo, he's a stubborn bugger who's very fortunate to still be in a job. However, for once he got the tactics right yesterday and I will give him praise for that.Nevertheless, I still have serious doubts about his managerial qualities, and it will be interesting to see if he can capitalise on the extra time that he's gained as manager of NTFC.

Totally agree, 100%. Couldn't give a damn about anything else but 3 points today!

Bungle - Calderwood got us to the play-offs in each of his first 2 seasons. Sammo won't achieve this.

Drilling, I usually enjouy your posts but think you've been on a different planet this weekend. No way did we play as badly as against Hereford. In fact it was the complete opposite with Sammo putting the emphasis on team shape and defensive solidity.

Yes, it wasn't pretty but it was effective (and Sammo has admitted that the more direct style is not to his taste).

I can understand your concerns with Sammo but yesterday tactically he got it spot on (apart from Guinan, who he is trying to replace). The subs were all forced with Billy looking totally off the pace, Gilligan asking to come off and McKenzie taken off as a precaution after taking several whacks to the knee.

Before you keep slating Sammo I'd ask myself does a club legend deserve it?

Sammo put out a team with strength and no fancy shenanigins to play Gillingham, and it worked. Horse for courses. Give him some credit. The fancy stuff can come back later when the fear of losing has gone and our players are more relaxed. Lincoln are a long-ball hit and chase unit, so maybe the same tactic will work there. If the fancy-boys are on the bench there will be options for change.

I called for Sammo's head after the Macclesfield defeat (the last game I was at) and I admit that I meant it.

I'm really happy that we have finally won a game... it took long enough!

However, one win is only one win. We need to continue winning games from now on and for Sammo to learn from this spell.

All I want is for Sammo to achieve, believe me I do. But the one thing I wont stand by and watch is him take us into the basement of the Conference without me wanting fresh managerial blood in the hot seat.

I hope we keep it up but if we don't move away from the danger zone and things look bad I will stand by my words after the Macc game.

I said I would not join the Sammo Out unless Gills beat us so I am relatively happy as we won however a performance and win at Lincoln is essential too and with our away record it will be tricky.

Back to the thread, Lincoln away is another massive game. Two more wins this week and operation amnesty would be a resounding success...for the time being!

How come Lincoln keep changing Managers yet keep same 'lump it up 'em style'? What reception will Holty get? - they almost bought him in close-season or has someone else pointed that out!? I would have used Seb v Imps for his heading.

Lincoln seem to have been like that for ages. Same with Rotherham. And we rarely seem to win at either!

I Think if we employ the same tactics as saturday against Lincoln on tuesday it will end in disaster, it will be like playing them at their own horrible longball game. I just cant see us being able to win a physical battle against them or causing the same sort of threat from set pieces.

The reason we were so dominant from set pieces was teir absolutely tiny team

Well after being down for so long, we're up again at the minute, so get ready for the roller-coaster ride to continue come Wednesday.

It would be interesting to understand how the nine points target was reached ....... as two wins amd three draws, or three wins, would be optimistic in a good season.

At least we have three points in the bag already, against a team most people thought we were destined to lose to.

Well said  :)

I wanted to throw my thoughts in on yesterdays game and the Sammo-out brigade....

For the first ten minutes I nearly joined you. It was a shambles for 600 seconds, I couldn't believe it when I saw Holty and Gilly out wide. I thought Sammo had lost the plot but it proved a masterstoke in my oppinion. Holty was utter class yesterday, stuck out wide to shackle David Bentley, provide a bit or aerial support int the middle when needed and even made a few nice dashes down the line. I'm also a Gilly fan, one of few it seems. His set-piece deliveries were spot-on and resulted the the first goal and the penalty. His block would've made John Terry proud as well. The best game he's had for ages.
 

The one thing I always find disturbing on this messageboard is when posters start making up imaginary targets to vent their spleen against. Can somebody please name the posters who have called for Sammo to be dismissed. I know there were a few that said that if this run wasn't halted and quickly then he should go but just who were the posters who were crying "Sammo Out" because I'm buggered if I know.

Well, you. You never used the actual words but it's fairly obvious it's what you want. Certainly comes across like that.

Oh, it's me is it? I've never been described as a brigade before.

What I want is a successful on the field Northampton Town FC. I don't care who the manager is who delivers it, I don't care who the players are that achieve it. If it's Sammo and the current squad, so be it, I'd be almost as delighted as the Chairman. Do I think it will be? No, but I'm more than happy to be proven wrong.

Me, and in big bold letters. Is there anything else i can help you with today?

Because I'm working on the assumption that most teams in and around the drop zone will get around a point a game. We were two points adrift of safety before Saturday's game, so if the other teams pick up 4 or 5 points in this period, and we pick up 9, we should put a reasonable bit of daylight (2/3 points) between us and the drop zone, and confidence should have been replenished to some degree. If we don't have that points cushion and confidence by the end of November, then I'd start to genuinely fear for our football league future, and at that point it's time for a change of the man at the helm.

I reckon Sammo should be given to Xmas

Thank f*** for that, I thought it was me.  :P

i heard a rumour  he had to get 4 points out of 3 games what should not be hard may i say ??? starting at oxford so we will see come tomorrow ( he has 3 so needs a draw or win to keep his job )

This is pretty much the choice we have:

Budget 2010/11 season.

Sammo stays - circa 1million quid. (based on this season)
Sammo leaves, new man appointed - circa 900k. (based on compo costs etc)

Its a big decision for DC. What we did see on Saturday, regardless of our views on the performance, tactics etc...was a team playing for him. They could have folded after going behind so early on but they turned it round and got the 3 points. By the time we play Port Vale I am hopeful that our first choice team will be fully fit/available and we can start having some continuity with its selection, particularly in defence.

He's obviously still under huge pressure, but I don't think a defeat tomorrow will see a decision made. I read a post yesterday from Bungle and I am total agreement with him. We have little choice at the moment to stick by him because the financial implications of making changes now would hold us back again NEXT SEASON. Views will change on a game to game basis though because of the critical position we are in the table.

I called for his head on a stick, and i'm still not convinced he's the right man for the job although his change of tactics on Saturday has given me a slight glimmer of hope that he's learning from his mistakes.

Saturday was a massive win and has bought him more time, but it will count for nothing if we can't build on it and get more points (hopefully 3 but 1 at a minimum) on Tuesday and a win on Saturday.

Don't get carried away by 1 win, most of the Sammo out camp have based there thoughts after 6 straight defeats, so it's going to take a similar run in the opposite direction before i'm back on side with Sammo.

Please prove me wrong sammo

I heard a rummer that if he didn't dress up as a pumpkin and stand out DC house for Halloween he was getting the sack  >:D

I tend to believe the Chairman when he says quite definitely that there has been no ultimatum of a set date or number of points, just an agreement that improvement needs to come relatively quickly. The two are not the same.

Anyone else who would like me to put their questions to David Cardoza, I'm meeting him tomorrow so please e-mail me on cobblersteve@hotmail.com before tomorrow morning (Tues)

This is the truth of the matter and we need to get away from the match by match knee jerk reaction.

Irrespective of the result tomorrow night, DC has to look at the bigger picture ........ are we performance wise going in the right direction and is Sammo the right person for the job.

If DC believes that Sammo remains the right person for the job, he should give him the dreaded vote of confidence as all the unsubstantiated rumours flying aound are not helping the situation.

I disagree, If he's under pressure then it will keep him on his toes to get the results needed

You can play crap and win, you can play brilliantly and lose. That's football. It's not the actual result, it's the manner in which it came about.

You can play crap and win, you can play brilliantly and lose.

Sounds like my marriages  :P

So you can discount that source then! Try HP Brown - much stronger

Gotta admit, have had a good s****** at some of the comments made in this thread.

Seems to have gone quiet now. Anyone else still want Sammo out? Because I'm sure whenever it happens (1 month/1 year/2 years/3 years down the line) this will become the "I told you so" thread.

Everyone is so happy we've reached the giddy heights of 20th in Division 4!

Well of course it's all gone quiet on this front, the ones calling for Sammo's head who may still have their doubts on certain things are obviously still here, it's just that when a team generally starts to do the right things, that tends to indicate that somethings going right. (Ermm...who's going to come on here and continue to call for his sacking when we've been winning - what part of that isnt self-explanatory?) 

Just as a general point - I love it when certain posters on here only choose to get on the bandwagon once its in the majority, it show's the measure of that person. Deep breath!.... rant over.

With Davis tackling like a sunday league player and getting himself needlessly sent off after only 10 minutes. Before that we were looking very strong and many thought we'd score a hatful. Barnet had their heads down but came alive only after Davis left the pitch.

Would have been a different game otherwise

I agree.  Leaving the ground today I said that had we had eleven men on the pitch we'd have won that.  It's an odd thing to say on the back of that sort of scoreline but our heads went down and their tails went up in perfect synchronisation, unfortunately.

Sammo picks the team-it's as simple as that.Davis made schoolboy errors at Torquay, a game which was effectively over a little after half time.To say that they have learning difficulties is the understatement of the year.

don't play a left-winger at left-back when you have a solid natural left-back available.
don't take off your leading goalscorer and only goal threat and replace him with a kamikaze right-back.
don't take off your strongest midfielder and keep on a complete clueless idiot like Gilligan.
don't play 1 up front when you're chasing a game against the worst team in the football league.
don't wait until you're 3-1 down to bring on your most creative players, and when you do bring them on give them somebody to aim their passes at.

Davis was playing left wing at Torquay you moron and has been v good at left back. Indeed, his performances have been drawing the attention of scouts from higher leagues. This is the last time i'm gonna reply to you because you don't go to games and don't know what your talking about

Obviously you didn't make the long journey to Torquay, otherwise you would have witnessed Davis' inability to tackle, which ultimately cost us the game.You Mong!

He played left wing at Torquay. I was there as I have been all season. You don't go to games.Your opinion is irrelevant

I agree with all those points but Davis is an absolutely crucial player for us and his sending off was disastrous

Unfortunately, I went to that one, and Davis was subbed and yelled at by Sammo for poor defensive duties.Perhaps you had your claret tinted glasses on.

I agree that he's a key player but don't think conceding 4 to Barnet is justified by losing one player. If we can hold out for 45 minutes with 10 men against a side the calibre of Port Vale, we should be able to at the very least keep the scoreline respectable against Barnet. Losing 4-1 is inexcusable.

I think we'd have lost anyway because that black lad on the left wing was near on unplayable

However, I think it'd have been more sensible to keep McKenzie on (can only think he was injured), bring Hall in at left back, take Gilligan off and perhaps have Rodgers or King right wing.

Gilligan was chasing shadows again. sh*t

Certain Cobblers die hards been put down on this forum for declaring Gilly sh*t.People are catching on, I wonder when/if Sammo will.

Sammo coud have done his homework before the game. Rodgers being left out was one when Barnet had a flyer down the wing. Telling his players not to fanny around with the ball hanging up due to the slope, and having Thornton and Gilligan on the pitch at the end.

Gilligan is fine when allowed to fanny around on the wing but when he was needed in more crucial  areas after the sending off he went missing again

"Eastnpton" what are you talking about, one minute your saying it would have been a different game if the Cobblers had 11 men, the next your saying "i think we would have lost anyway because of that black lad ......" make your mind up.

 Sammo picks the team, its up to him to control them, 5 sending off's would suggest he is failing completely.  He is a piss poor manager, hope everybody who went to Forest Green the other week enjoyed the day, get used to it !!!!!!!!!!

Yeah this guy is right, can all you people who don't go to a game stop posting on here as your opinion on the club is irrelevant. Only people who go to every game should be allowed to express an opinion.

I was saying that even if we kept Mkenzie on I think we would have lost because the black lad was pulling us all over the place. With McKenzie on it might have been closer

Couldn't make today, my wife was ill and someone had to look after the kids. So maybe I shouldnt comment?!

But it seems that Sammo was going for something similar to last week and tried to contain Barnet and hit them on the break, but it didn't work, clearly.

Thats all I will say, otherwise may be attacked because I don't go to enough games!

Quite right too' Russ', seems its a case if you dont watch, you cant comment, new policy it seems.!!!!!!!!!!!!

What was Sammo supposed to do???

After this many red cards so far this season maybe its his job to remind his players they are more f***ing useful ON the pitch than OFF it.

Hmm, not sure on how to answer the question.  Too many red cards are becoming the bain of our season, last week's was unfortunate but no complaints about the decsion yesterday as in the letter of the law.

Any game when you have to play with ten men for 80 minutes is going to difficult.

Doesn't excuse conceding 4 to a bottom of the table side.

This thread is for those fans who:

-Clap the team off the pitch after its been relegated or thumped 4-1 by the worst team in the football league.
-Are defending a manager who has won 7 of the last 27 games.
-Whilst concerned about our poor discipline, refuse to blame the manager for it and point the blame at the players.
-Fail to see that the current manager has fallen out with at least half a dozen players this year at different points.
-thought the substitution of Seb Harris at Shrewsbury was an example of incisive management.
-Still believes that we are trying our very best to sign a decent striker
-Wants the manager to stay in charge on the basis that a better one cannot be sourced due to the chairman not being prepared to splash out.
-Gets all upset if someone slates the bloke because he's a 'club legend' and is therefore not showing respect.
-Applauds the introduction of Steve Guinan into the game.
-Was happy to see us lose 3-1 in a cup game at Ipswich playing Andy Holt up front on his own for the last 15 minute.
-Thinks Gilligan's inclusion in the team week in week out is justified.
-Thinks it was wise to start the season with only two recognised central defenders at the club, one of which was transfer listed.
-Justifies sticking by the manager because 'he is learning and will continue to learn from his mistakes'

I could of course go on but I probably don't need to.

This thread is for all you muppets who think we have the right manager in charge! Enjoy, Im sure you will all be up at Rotherham because you are 'real supporters' !  ;D ;D

so in summary, this is somewhere you'd like everyone who doesn't agree with you to post.

He's right though isn't he Geoff?

I am all for openess and different opinions on here Driller but I am very dissapointed that you have yet to start the balancing thread that lists all the good things David Cardoza has done for the club.

I'll start.

Spent loads of his his hard earned money on the old new badge.

it's the arrogance more than the subject Jimbo.

anybody else reckon that Sammo is Phil Chard mark 2?

- for us a decent player in a decent team.
- a regular in the side, mr reliable and club captain.
- made a shed load of appearances, scored the occassional memorable goal, thereby achieveing legend status
- a thoroughly good bloke and a gentleman off the field
- thrust willingly into management when finances were stretched
- unable to bring in players of the same quality of his predessor
- started found wanting tactically
- brought in an old head to help out
- occassional achieved spectacular results
- and by the look of it ended up about the same place in the league?

what happened after Chard was of course much worse. god forbid we end up like that again.

Sammo! Sammo! Sammo!

 ;D

Don't stop now, let us know what you really think........ :P

SAMMO OUT NOW. Its getting beyond a joke, im sure we will all go over and over this, but what has he done!!!!!  Beat liverpool?
 
WE NEED A PROVEN, FOOTBALL MANAGER!!!! sort it out.  I dont want to see our club down in the conference!!! 

I think he should be given as much time as he wants, after all he is a club legend.... Anyone that can't see were moving in the right direction needs to take their tinted glasses off...

Also since we won 5 games on the trot last season we have played 32 games and won 10. Three of which were in the cup! Also in that time we have lost 14! shocking in my opinion.

;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D We all know it'll go to Dennis Casey or whoever else has been there longest.

No. I think the comparison is well wide of the mark, and insulting to Phil. Management was thrust upon him and he did OK - he achieved his only aim which was to avoid relegation.

The players, the facilities and the funds available are a league apart to what they were then. We should never have been relegated to this tier and we should be at the top challenging. The fact we aren't comes down to one single reason...